RVP by Andy Williams

Author:Andy Williams [Andy Lloyd-Williams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782197133
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2013-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

NEW

RESPONSIBILITIES

With Thierry Henry leaving Arsenal for Barcelona in the summer, it was down to van Persie to take greater goalscoring responsibility in the 2007/08 season. He had been near fitness at the end of the previous season but Wenger had decided that it was not worth risking further injury with Arsenal having nothing left to play for in what had been a disappointing season for the team.

Van Persie was in amongst the goals in pre-season and ready to lead the line for an Arsenal side that had once again been shorn of one of its big-name players in post-season. In another quiet comeback game, he slid in at the far post to score against Turkish outfit Gençlerbirliǧi, an extremely similar effort to the one he hit against United which led to his injury. This time he had not broken anything when scoring the goal and it was time to crack on with the new season. He told the Evening Standard: ‘For me it is like, “Okay, I scored that goal against United and I scored a similar goal now.” So that is it. This period has gone. It is time to get it on and start again. It is in the past, it is history.’

Wenger had protected van Persie from meeting old foes Ajax in the past but this pre-season he decided not to wrap his lead marksman in cotton wool. The Dutch side decided it would be appropriate to kick the former Feyenoord man around the park in this ‘friendly’ but it looked like van Persie had got the last laugh when he prodded home the winner with minutes to go.

Perhaps in hindsight this had not been the wisest of times and places to score a goal and within seconds he had been flattened by John Heitinga. Wenger would have been ruing his decision to play van Persie had he been seriously injured. He retained a stiff upper lip after the game and reasoned that his side had faced similar tactics from the likes of Sheffield United and Doncaster Rovers before. He said: ‘The idea that you have to kick Arsenal is well known in England and it has obviously travelled over the border. It doesn’t worry me that teams might try to kick us because the best response is to win.’

Clearly the streets of Amsterdam were never going to be a safe place for van Persie to roam, but he had shown that he would not be stopped and would not be riled and had been rewarded with the winning goal. Emerging from that game with a goal and without having been provoked into a red card was a real triumph for van Persie.

Ahead of the season Arsenal were labelled good but not quite experienced enough by a lot of pundits including former Spurs and England man Les Ferdinand. The legendary striker did tell the Guardian he thought van Persie was ‘decent’, which, coming from a former Tottenham player, was praise indeed.

Arsène Wenger was starting to run out of strikers so it was important the ones he did have at his disposal were able to play together.

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