Robin van Persie left Arsenal to win titles and now the former gunner will enter Emirates Stadium as the premier league champion while his ex-team mates will be giving guard of honor. Arsene Wenger feels United would have won the title without the prolific Dutchman but in fact he is actually contradicting himself here.
Van Persie is currently leading the premier league goal scoring charts having netted 24 times in 31 appearances for the Red Devils and will retain his golden boot crown as his nearest rival Luis Suarez is not going to play any further part in the campaign for Liverpool due to his hefty ban.
Half way through the season Arsene Wenger claimed that Robin van Persie is one of the main reasons why Manchester United are so far ahead in the league. He stated:
“It is painful to see Manchester United so far in front of us”
“You know when you sell Robin van Persie to United that will be the case. He is one of the best strikers in the world and you know he will score goals. He got 30 for us in the league last year.”
The time Wenger gave the mentioned interview, van Persie had already scored 16 league goals and majority of those were important goals. Winner against Liverpool, winner against Manchester City, goal against Chelsea, goal against former club Arsenal and numerous other comebacks when United were behind.
Now Wenger contradicts himself claiming that he was not actually all that important and United could have won their 20th league title without him as well.
“United have won 20 championships and they won a few without Robin van Persie. No, the difference is that City have dropped off”
Yes, Rvp’s second half of the campaign has not been as prolific as the first. Dutchman went 10 games without a goal and City’s poor form meant United were cruising. However, with 19 games played, Ferguson’s men already had a seven points lead at the top largely because of the contributions of Robin van Persie.
It is evident that Wenger made a huge mistake selling his main talisman to one of the rivals just because it made more business sense. Even the gunner supporters rue the club’s decision to offload their captain last summer and hate the fact that Arsenal sell stars at their peak when they need them the most.
Arsenal manager cannot hide his frustration, he did claim back in January that it hurts to see Robin van Persie doing wonders for United after leaving gunners. It surely hurts more to see him coming back to the Emirates as a champion for a rival club.
Follow Soccerisma on Twitter: Soccerisma
Premier League
La Liga
Bundesliga
Serie A
Ligue 1
UCL
Obvious he is being bitter
how can our best player not contribute to title
If Arsenal can’t get cl soccer,the fm shd go. He is responsible for the current decline. Fans can’t wait for
theffp for the gunners to get going. Now sponsorship is the name of the game.
Where will MU be be if they had not been winning on aregular basis?The fact Arsenal are the 4th richest in ws is testimony the Arsenal brand is world wide. Now if the gunners start winning trophies regularly,they could rival if not surpass the mu brand.
It’s not really a contradiction. His first statement states that the huge lead is because of van Persie, and he’s right, it doesn’t say van Persie is the reason they as in first. In fact, someone has done a really good article showing what the table would look like if you remove the top goal scorer from each team and Man Utd would still be leading the way, but not with the margin they have now, not even close. Yes, he’s scored a lot of goals for them, but only about 17% have been influential in the outcome. So you see, it’s actually two different statements, and Wenger is right in both.
Understand your point but if you remove van persie’s goals from the first half of the season. Im sure City wud have been top in January
I dont think he is bitter here but he is not right.
if RVP’s goals were removed utd would be a man less
It just happened to be RVP. If Manure didn’t buy him, they would have bought somebody else; Fergie couldn’t live with losingthe title to City and a new striker was needed.
Did RVP make a difference ? Yes
Would they have won it without him ? Yes, it wuld have been somebody elses name in highlights.
If RVP had gone to Manure and NOT won anything, us gooners would all have something to complain about. As it happens, he went, he won, and proved he made the right decision for him. Who else should he be thinking about ?