Arsenal formed a guard of honour for title winners Manchester United when they entertained the Red Devils on Sunday. Their former captain returned to his old stomping ground for the first time since he swapped London for Manchester in an acrimonious £24 million deal last summer and on the day he managed to get booked for a nasty lunge on Mertesacker and won and scored a penalty in the 1-1 draw which Arsenal should have won, on account of their dominant first half display. Fortunately, Van Persie did show some class as he did not celebrate his goal.
The Netherlands striker did not fancy the future direction at Arsenal and chose to join bitter rivals Manchester United over City after spending eight years with the club. His decision seems to be justified, as United have wrapped up the title with four rounds of fixtures remaining, who were unlucky to bow out to Real Madrid in the Champions League.
Compare that to Arsenal, and its sorry reading for the Gunners faithful once again. They are now 21 points behind United even though you would not think it from today’s match but they still face a real battle to qualify for the Champions League next season.
It could have been a whole lot different if they had their talisman, Van Persie, banging the goals in, who looks destined to win the Golden Boot for the second season running. However, as revealed by London Evening Standard, Wenger doesn’t have any regrets about selling his star player. He said, “I don’t go into the game thinking that. In our job, you look forward. So many great players have left this club that you could be full of regrets.”
Wenger also admitted that there are always two sides to a coin when you sell a player, and hinted that Van Persie being near the 30 age mark convinced him to sell. He said, “When you make a decision, you know there are pluses and minuses. What is only important now is the future of the club and the team. That’s how you look at it.”
“It’s always difficult to lose big players. Let’s be realistic. It’s more difficult when they are 24 than when they are 29 and they have given a few years to the club. That’s part of the modern life of a modern footballer as well.”
But could it really have been different for Arsenal if the 29-year-old was still at Emirates? The statistics would say no, as they scored 74 goals in the league last season, and with four games to play, they have already managed a healthy 65.
And Wenger echoed such sentiments, saying, “What you want to focus on is that when the big players go, you just want to get around it and try to find a new organisation that is efficient. You always miss a big player but the only thing I can say [is] it took us a while to get around it but if you look at the number of goals we’ve scored, it’s similar to last season.”