Robin van Persie

Reports over the last few days (which I believe started in the Metro) suggest that José Mourinho may be readying a £30 million bid to bring Robin van Persie to Real Madrid. Madrid were hampered last season by long-term injury to Gonzalo Higuain and by the relatively poor form of Karim Benzema. Consequently they were forced to rely on on-loan Adebayor to fill the void left by the club’s lack of available strikers.

Photo by Ronnie Macdonald on Flickr

Van Persie scored 22 goals in only 26 starts last season and spoke to the Mirror about his belief that next season could be his best yet. The Dutchman scored 18 league goals from the new year to the end of the season – a record which is only equalled (but not bettered) by Thierry Henry and Christiano Ronaldo.

“The second part of last year, I scored 18 Premier League goals so it’s strange. You can’t really tell beforehand whether you are going to have your best year because you don’t really know what is going to happen. If it goes your way, I do believe that this could be a really good year for me.

“The way I see it is that I am halfway through my career now. I have been playing for ten years and I’d like to play for at least ten more years. Of course I want to win things but winning things doesn’t come from out of the blue. I’m just a part of the whole story, it depends on many things.”

However, it is thought that Mourinho has been put on high alert after the Dutchman openly criticised Arsène Wenger’s transfer policy earlier this week.

“These days, proper players cost money. Sometimes you see players go for loads of money and you think, ‘Is he that good?’ It needs to be seen. Most of the time, they are.

“You need investment to keep up because, when you look around, Man City is buying loads of good players, Liverpool are doing it now, Man United have been doing it for years.

“So, in a way, you need to keep that up, because if everyone is doing something you need to do it as well.”

Although he may be unhappy about the current lack of transfer activity, van Persie has never stated any desire to leave the club. He is most probably first in line for the captaincy once Cesc Fabregas leaves for Barcelona and it does not make sense to leave Arsenal just as he has hit the peak of his career. He has overcome injury and deserves a 30 goal season at a club which adores him and does not want to see him leave.

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