So… listen to this… Back in 2012, Van Persie was Arsenal… That wasn’t a team, that was a one man army… They had signed him 8 years earlier… hoping that one day…. . he’d be able to fill the massive hole that would be left behind by Henry and Bergkamp….
and that season, even with the team in the gutter… he almost made it seem like the achievements of those two weren’t so impressive after all… 39 goal contributions in a single premier league season… Bergkamp never managed more than 27 and Henry… well, not only did Van Persie match his goal scoring record… but let’s just say that hadn’t he been selfless enough to stop his run so that Henry could score on his comeback to Arsenal… that one extra goal would have allowed him to match Ronaldo himself, as the Premier League’s all time record goalscorer… I think you get the picture but… as good as he was then… It was the fact that he had stuck by his team throughout 6 long trophyless years that had made him their hero… Just the year before, their captain Cesc Fabregas had gotten so fed up with the situation the club was in that he offered to pay out of his own pocket to leave… And once he did, it was Van Persie who took on the armband… all while swearing to the fans that he would never do the same, claiming that: "My heart is with Arsenal… I couldn’t even picture myself in a different shirt”. . .
I think we all know where this is going… Less than 2 months after scoring the final of those 30 goals, Robin Van Persie refused to renew his contract at Arsenal and a month later, not only had he left… He had signed for their rivals, going as far as claiming that “the little boy inside me has always screamed for Man United”. . .
The fans came after his family, they burned shirts, the whole deal… It was one of the greatest betrayals in the history of the sport… but what hurt the most was that it paid off tremendously for both Van Persie and Man United… However, I always found it strange that people were so shocked that Van Persie would do such a thing because…. for a player who had so much class with the ball at his feet, he has always been problematic… like… even when he was a kid he was going off the rails… He always tells this story about how he got kicked out of class so often that he became close friends with the janitor… and what’s even more ridiculous than that is that his family never really cared because before he was even born, they went to a fortune teller because they wanted to know the gender of the baby… but not only did she confirm to his father that he’d finally have a son, but she told him that he would become a footballer and play for the Netherlands one day… So once he noticed the kid had talent, he just accepted that was his destiny, he pretty much let him do whatever he wanted and that had some clear consequences… When Van Persie was 16, as much as he was already recognized as one of the best talents in the country, he literally got expelled from his club’s academy because according to one of the coaches: “He did nothing he was told and everything he wanted”. .
. yeah they got so annoyed at him, that they would rather not have him in the team at all… In fact according to Man United’s chief scout back then they were already looking at the possibility of signing him but the stories they heard about his behavior at the club literally scared them away… Regardless, Feyennord ended up signing him and though they also worried about his lack of maturity, after a series of injuries they ended up being forced to bump him up to the first team way sooner than they expected and the result was just wild… 8 months later, Van Persie was yet to score a single goal, however he was the dutch young talent of the year and an european champion… That seems almost like a paradox, but back then he was a traditional winger in a system with two strikers… so scoring goals wasn’t exactly his job, but when it comes to everything else, he was a talent beyond his years… Just looking at that UEFA Cup run, he was the man of the match several times… Not only did he dominate both games against Rangers, being involved in three different goals… but even more impressive, then… in the semi finals, he went against Ronaldo Fenómeno’s Inter and made their defense look like swiss cheese… had Van Hooijdonk not wasted an open goal chance, he would have come out of there with two assists… So yeah… I think you can tell by now, that he really was just a generational talent… In fact, Feyennord were quick to make him sign a professional contract after all of that, but only 3 matches into the next season, he had already ruined everything… You see, they were about to play Real Madrid for the European Supercup and Van Persie was obsessed with Zidane, he wanted to play against him more than anything, but the game before that, in the champions league play offs, the coach told him to warm up and then didn't even bring him on, which in Van Persie’s head meant that he would never get a chance to play in the supercup so he lost his mind and while most of his teammates celebrated, he went into the locker room shouting in anger, throwing his boots on the ground and the coach, knowing how much of a brat he could be, decided to punish him by repeatedly benching him and at times even sending him to play with the reserves, but the moment he let him play the full 90 for the first time, he scored 5 goals in a match… Then obviously they couldn’t just keep benching him and before you knew it he was on 15 goals in 12 matches… but even after that, his form was as unstable as his temper and as much as the fans already seemed sure that he’d become the next Bergkamp… they also kind of hated him… He was so frequently harassed in the streets that his father forced him to hire a bodyguard, but even though the club was as interested in selling him as he was interested in leaving… At that point the other clubs had all caught up to the fact that he was trouble… so he was stuck… and… it was actually kind of strange how he got around that… You see, Wenger was one of the people who had their eye on him already, but he thought that Van Persie wasn’t ready to play in the Premier League or as he said “to play in extreme conditions” but then… Feyennord sent Van Persie to play another match with the reserves, who knows what he did that time, but once he got there the Ajax fans were just crazy, they spat on him, they threw stuff at him, he was abused the entire match… and somehow he still managed to score… which angered the rival fans so much that they rushed into the field and beat him up… I am not even joking… after that match, as you might, rsene Wenger finally decided to sign him, either out of sheer pity or because he now had confirmation that Van Persie really could handle “extreme situations”. .
. But yeah… the plan was simple… Bergkamp and Henry were getting old, Anelka had left them, so they needed a new heir for the throne and if Wenger had managed to turn Henry from a winger into the deadliest striker on the planet… he believed he could do the same to Van Persie… What he didn’t realize was that he would make his job much harder than Henry had… Right on his first season, he was already getting slammed in the media for being immature. I mean, the Telegraph literally wrote that “his brain serves no use” and if you’re wondering what happened that time… well.
. In a match against Southampton, Van Persie was on a yellow card, so Arsene Wenger, knowing that he had that Balotelli gene, stopped him and told him “Robin, be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.
Don’t even make tackles”. . .
5 minutes in, he lost the ball trying to dribble on the halfway line and proceeded to hit a Southampton player with a two footed tackle… As he walked off to the locker room, Wenger looked absolutely dumbfounded… But hey, that was just kind of funny, you know? But over summer, things got very serious very fast when Van Persie ended up spending a few weeks in jail after being accused of “a crime” I cannot mention… you know what I mean… In fact, It got so bad in prison, that they had put him in solitary to protect him from the other guys and there was so much worry that he could end up doing serious time for it, that some sources claim Arsenal impulsively bought Aleksander Hleb to cover for him if he ended up being imprisoned for good, but the case ended up being dismissed… and somehow he still made it back in time for pre season and it was around that moment that, for some reason, he thought it was a good idea to approach Wenger and demand more playing time, as Van Persie himself recalled it: “He looked me in the eyes and told me “You’re still not a top player”, I asked him why and he replied “No, I’m not telling you, you have to find out for yourself, you have to start asking the right questions, look around, so many top players and you’re not of them, why? why are you not a top player, Robin?
”. . .
From that moment I began paying attention, I’d look at Dennis, at Henry, at Pirés, the runs they made, the way they read the game… I realized that he was right, I was so far off… I told myself “That’s where I wanna go”” And I’m guessing the motivational talk worked because by November, Van Persie had scored 8 goals in 8 matches and had been named the player of the month, but that was precisely when his other big issue began to surface… Van Persie was pretty much made of glass and when a player stepped on his foot a few matches later… he literally broke his toe… add to that 3 ankle sprains over the rest of the season and yeah… his form died down massively… By the time Arsenal made it to the UCL final, he had only played 8 minutes throughout the entire knockout stage… Then, of course, as his third season began, we got another glimpse at his problematic side, when he lost control of his bmw, crashed it and literally just left it there, hitching a ride to training like it was nothing, which as you might imagine is a crime, one that could get up to six months in jail… thankfully his excuse that he “didn’t know” somehow worked, otherwise who knows what would have happened… Regardless, that season, despite going through 3 more injuries, he managed to outscore even Henry, somehow finishing the season as the club’s top scorer and doing it in style, even scoring a goal against Charlton that Wenger called “the goal of a lifetime”. . .
and with Henry leaving to Barcelona over summer, the day had arrived… It was time for Van Persie to put on his big boy pants and take over as the king of the Emirates… But again… after a streak of 7 goals in 10 matches, he went out for international duty, injured his knee and spent 5 months on the sidelines… He even returned twice, but every time he stepped on the pitch, it was either his ankle or his knee… it seemed impossible for him to stay fit…. The next season, thankfully things weren’t too bad, only 4 minor knocks and 7 matches on the sidelines throughout the year and the result was incredible 20 goals, 14 assists, a spectacular goal vs Liverpool, he even led the league’s assist providing charts and was named player of the season at Arsenal, but the following year it happened again… 16 goal contributions in the first 14 matches of the season and then he got injured in an international friendly and was out till April… By the time he got another start, there were 3 matches left in the season… You have to realize that, at this point, Van Persie was closing in on his 28th birthday… It was starting to be questioned if he’d ever be able to have a world class season, but then a lot of things happened very quickly… First, despite the injury, Van Persie still made it to the world cup and surprised everyone, playing a huge role in getting the Netherlands out of the group stage and then assisting one of the decisive semi final goals to secure their place in the biggest game on the planet… And though they lost, he didn’t stop… Once back at Arsenal, he took on Bergkamp’s number 10 and though he injured his ankle again before he had even managed to score a single goal, by new year’s he was fully recovered and… then… he went on a run that made every other player in the league look like an amateur… You see, on January 1st, Van Persie scored his first goal of the season… At that point, Berbatov was on top of the goalscorers table with 13 and Tevez was second with 11… But only 7 matches later, Van Persie had already scored 10 goals himself and though, you know, just to stick to his brand, he did get injured and missed 2 matches, he still came back and even with Arsenal in disastrous form, he went on another run of 8 goals in 10 matches, even breaking Drgba’s record for scoring in the most consecutive away games… By the end of the season, he had tied Ronaldo and Henry for the record of most goals ever scored in the second half of a season but unfortunately, even if very impressive regardless, he was still 2 goals away from stealing the golden boot from Berbatov and Tevez… Even more disappointing, he was on 26 goals and 6 assists in 25 matches across all competitions and still did not make it any further than the round of 16 in the UCL… Had Arsenal not been completely robbed against Barcelona with Van Persie being sent off for kicking the ball literally just one second after the referee had blown his whistle… who knows what could have happened… after all, they were in the lead… Regardless, it didn’t matter, because, at 28 years of age, the next season would be the first since his arrival in the Premier League where Robin Van Persie did not get injured a single time, not even a minor knock… The moment Fábregas left the club, he took on the armband and just kept going… 21 goals and 6 assists in the first half of the season… By new year’s he had been named in the FIFA World XI for the first time in his career and then with Tottenham seemingly running away with the final Champions League spot, Van Persie put his foot down and just kept scoring, even leading Arsenal to a comeback win against Tottenham themselves, as they eventually finished just 1 point above them… as one newspaper would put it… Van Persie was “A one man band of the highest order”. .
. in a season where he got within inches of beating every single goalscoring record in sight, Arsenal’s second highest goalscorer was Theo Wallcott with a measly 8 goals… Even if his team had finished 19 points away from 2nd place… when it came down to the voting, there was no doubt… Robin Van Persie was the PFA Player Of The Year… And as you may imagine, here’s exactly where the whole betrayal took place… Once Van Persie met with the board to negotiate his new contract, just like Fábregas he asked them where the club’s ambition had gone, what had happened since the early 2000s, what was the plan… and I kid you not they started showing him the club’s profit margins, the net and gross whatever! It was obvious to him that their objectives were not the same, as he once said “My relationship to Arsenal was like a marriage… After 8 years, we had grown apart, we were tired of each other… I was still ambitious, I still dreamed of winning the league title so I began looking around, that is life!
” Honestly, as much as I understand, this is incredibly ironic considering that Van Persie was known for having cheated on his wife… but moving on! When Van Persie arrived at Man United, there was a lot of doubt surrounding his signing… Some said Rooney and him wouldn’t mesh well, some said United should have focused on improving their midfield… But Sir Alex clearly did not agree, not only did he address that second claim saying that “when a player of that caliber shows up you have to act, there’s no time to think” but there’s also the fact that, the moment he signed Van Persie, he went into the locker room and according to Rio Ferdinand he told his players “Scholesy, Carrick, Shinji, Wayne, I got a new player… I’ll show you how to get the ball to him… and if you can give him the ball like that…. he will win us the league… And if you can’t… you will not play”.
. . As Ferdinand would add: “I had never seen him talk about a player like that… Ronaldo was probably the only other one”.
. . And thankfully for Van Persie, the entire club was convinced that this was possible, in fact, the assistant coach, Rene Meulensteen even convinced him to take the number 20 shirt… because that year he would take United to their 20th league title and so… he did… In fact, it was one of the most clutch, most decisive performances in the history of football and it started off at an absurd pace… After having already scored a decisive goal in his first start for the club, the very next match Van Persie faced Southampton… and around the one hour mark, United were trailing behind 2-1, with Van Persie having scored the one, obviously… However, then he missed a few chances and topped it all off by missing a penalty which greatly upset him, but with about 10 minutes left, his leg began cramping and it was pretty severe, most players would have signaled for a substitution and gone on with their day… but Van Persie refused to leave and on the 87th minute he tied the match and in injury time he completed the comeback and got his hat trick… but still, when he walked into the dressing room with the ball, he asked for everyone’s attention and apologized to his teammates for missing the penalty… That bratty entitled young boy was dead and gone, this new Van Persie was a professional and he had a license to kill… A few matches later, he scored the winner vs Liverpool, then 3 assists and a goal over his next three matches… and once they beat both Chelsea and Arsenal back to back on minimal margin, guess who scored in against both?
Yeah, 10 matches in, his goals had already won his team 13 points… but people tend to focus way too much on those first 10, because he didn’t really stop… On his 11th match, he assisted a goal in a 3 to 2 win and then, after 2 more quiet games, he went on another absurd run, scoring the winning goals in 3 consecutive games, finishing off with an injury time goal vs City and then carrying on with 5 goals and 2 assists in the next 5 matches and then adding two opening goals vs Tottenham and Liverpool… now 23 matches into the season, he had won 24 points for his club with 24 goal contributions in 20 starts… and even if then he went on a dry-er streak after in colliding with a tv camera and injuring his hip, United were already 11 points ahead… The carry job was completed, but still he made sure to come back before the season ended, scoring maybe the coolest hat trick ever against Aston Villa… With his first goal, he made United champions, with his 2nd he literally won the award for goal of the season and with his third he leapfrogged Luis Suárez to the top of the goalscorers table, allowing him to take the golden boot at the end of the season… As he said it himself: “That whole season, I felt relaxed and confident… We went behind in 16 different games and still won by 11 points”. . .
You want me to tell you why? Because Robin Van Persie was there… But of course, this is Robin Van Persie so we couldn’t really get a happy ending… Then Sir Alex surprised everyone by retiring and according to Ferdinand: “His retirement hurt Robin the most”. .
.
