Thoughts on Robin Van Persie's “Attempted” Act of Sacrilege

Let me tell you a word or two about the English Press—or media Vultures, as I prefer to call them. They have their “sources” stationed in probably every club in the world as they continue to publish articles that generate traffic, comments and what have you. There are days when the media Vultures feed us with news that brings elation to football fans, while there are other days when they publish articles that makes a few hearts skip a beat or two.

Arsenal has been one of the most favorite media Vulture topics in recent years because there’s always something to say about Arsene Wenger, his team, the Board and sometimes, us the fans.

Every summer seems to come with a player that will drag things on before making that inevitable move out of the Emirates.

2009 had the Emmanuel Adebayor show on display. I can vividly remember how he likened AC Milan to Beyonce before moving for the petro-greens of the Etihad. After taunting Arsenal with his childish celebration, his career went downhill as he spent good man hours rotting on the bench before securing a loan move to Real Madrid.

Tottenham has since offered Adebayor some solace, and he has learned to keep his mouth shut on issues concerning Arsenal.

The best part of the 2010 and 2011 summers were dominated by the Fabregate saga, but Samir Nasri stole the show with his shenanigans that put him on Arsenal’s bad books for years to come.

This summer has seen a new superstar dominate the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and to top it all off, it’s a player that was believed to have loved Arsenal through and through.

In as much as I’ve grown weary about writing about Robin van Persie, I can’t seem to fathom why the forward, in his right frame of mind, would even consider moving to Arsenal’s eternal rivals, Manchester United.

We all thought that he was frolicking and playing with Andre Santos in the German training ground, but the media Vultures have led us to believe that he flew back to England with Harry Potter’s broom to finalize his paperwork for his imminent move to Old Trafford.

At some point, Juventus seemed to be the team in pole position for his signature, but the media Vultures told us that he’s in advanced talks with Man Utd.

To add fuel to an already ravaging inferno, Sir Alex Ferguson has been on the news as well,

“We have made a bid and they’ve been trying to negotiate with other clubs. I don’t have a gut feeling on it at the moment, I must admit. We’re not getting any breakthrough with Arsenal. It’s difficult to say why they’re operating this way. I don’t know what their thoughts are because they’re not giving anything away.”

Are you kidding me?

If my memory serves me right, there was never—I mean, never—any point in time when Arsene Wenger placed Wayne Rooney on his radar when he tried to force a move out of Old Trafford. Arsenal’s last piece of business with them (an embarrassing piece as well) was bringing in that wasted bag of muscles, Mikael Silvestre, to the Emirates for a buy one get one free price.

It was more shocking to know that Wenger preferred to let Phillippe Senderos go on loan to Milan to accommodate that wasted material with a bean-shaped head.

Arsenal has every God-given right to hold onto van Persie for the last year of his contract. According to those folks at Forbes, we are the fourth richest football entity on the globe, with $1.29b so why in the world are we even considering selling van Persie to the highest bidder?

Yes, he placed himself like an open duck with his poorly-timed statement, and he would have gotten everybody’s blessing if the likes of Barcelona and Madrid snooped around, but his potential suitors are not as much as he’d have thought his statement would’ve fetched.

It would be understandable if he wanted to force a move to win trophies, but questioning the ability of his manager (that stuck with him through the bad times) and the club (that paid his wages and catered for his rehab countless times) was totally unnecessary. Even with the acquisitions of Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla, grumpy ol’ van Persie doesn’t seemed to be satisfied yet.

I could actually understand Samir Nasri’s flirtation with Manchester United, because he was shipped in from France, had spent three years or so with us and it was also glaring that he wanted the greens. Van Persie, on the other hand, has been at Arsenal for eight years; and he has also played epic encounters against the enemy.

Van Persie knows about the hatred, contempt and anger Arsenal fans have for Manchester United, and it will be an act of sacrilege if he attempts to seal the deal there.

This is the club that ended our immortal 49-match unbeaten run, spanked us with one of our heaviest defeats in the league (8-2), bullied us to sign some players we wanted (Chris Smalling, Phil Jones), dived and cheated countless times when we played in their home ground and to crown it all off, they beat us with seven recognized defenders in their starting lineup.

Wayne Rooney has also backed his club up to get van Persie, and he’s relishing the prospect of playing alongside the Flying Dutchman. However, I and many sane Arsenal fans they cannot even think of imagining a strike force spearheaded by Rooney and van Persie. For goodness' sake, these guys had 57 Premier League goals between them last season.

Keeping van Persie against his will maybe considered as a crime to football in his lexicon, but I’d rather keep van Persie at Arsenal than to let him to go Manchester United.

That’s enough ranting for one article.

This article is also featured in Toni Okike's Arsenal blog, Gooner Daily