Is Robin van Persie’s departure another one of Ivan Gazidis’ mistakes at Arsenal?
Former Arsenal skipper Robin van Persie spoke on Jake Humphrey’s High Performance Podcast about the reason he left the Emirates for Manchester United.
Van Persie was arguably Arsenal’s best player in his last two seasons and was the biggest reason why the Gunners made it into the Champions League.
His goals helped Manchester United clinch the league in his first season there and that certainly pained a number of Arsenal fans.
The Dutchman has been explaining his decision to leave the Gunners for quite some time but he revealed a few more details when he appeared on the podcast.
Van Persie claimed back in August last year that Arsenal never offered him a new contract. (BT Sport) The Dutchman has now claimed that the reason he left was because Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal’s former CEO, didn’t agree to his seven-point plan.
He said: “After many conversations, it became clear that we had different ideas about the club. I had seven points where I thought Arsenal could improve and, in my opinion, those seven points, they should start dealing with those straightaway to compete with the best teams.”
“Yeah [I remember what they were] but it doesn’t really matter what points they were. What matters is Ivan decided that he didn’t agree on one single point of those seven points, which is fair enough. So taking that information on board, Arsenal doesn’t offer me a deal. They didn’t agree with my views, my views were only to help.”
Gazidis, now at AC Milan, never really connected with Arsenal fans and left the club with a sour relationship with the supporters.
Arsenal fans are in a dilemma now. Some of them feel that Van Persie has no right to tell the board what to do while others feel that it is another one of Ivan Gazidis’ transfer blunders during his time at the Emirates.
Here’s how a few Gunners supporters reacted to the Dutchman’s comments on twitter.
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