Now time has come passed to take stock, and the situation is clear, what do I think about the Robin Van Persie departure to Manchester United?

Well, I am sure like most of you I could describe my thoughts on this in very few expletives! However, on this occasion I will try and stay calm, and outline what I really think about this whole debacle that unravelled really over the last few years. Let me start however by putting the situation into some kind of context, if I can. He is without a shadow of a doubt a quality player, we cannot kid ourselves on that front, and also we cannot kid ourselves that he was absolutely vital in our charge from early disaster to 3rd place in the Premier League last season. But the fact is he wanted to go, and quite frankly he made his position at the club in my opinion untenable through that quite frankly outrageous "statement" that he released in June. Therefore him staying was never really an option I would argue, that said however what followed was in my opinion absolutely disgraceful! Both on the part of the player for behaving as he did, and on the side of the club for selling to them. This hurts.

This was a man that before he had even joined Arsenal was accused of sexual assault in his home country, which Arsenal supported him through, and signed him regardless of this record. Also, for most of his career at Arsenal his talent was spoilt by an almost constant injury threat. He would get fit, play brilliantly, give us all hope, and then get injured again after 3,4,5, whatever, games. But, did we turn on him? Did we loose faith and support on him? NO. He had our full entire support throughout these injury crises, and it really was that. We were patient with him, we gave him our unconditional support all of the time, and when he got fit once again we treated him like a returning hero, before then once again being let down by injury.

However this changed in the second half of the 2010/2011 season where FINALLY he managed to stay fit, and as expected was brilliant. He then stayed fit for the entire 2011/2012 season, which was a miracle really considering his previous record by the way, and again was brilliant and scored I think 37 goal across the season and was the tip of our spear, as the leader and talisman of the team.

So haven gone through all that, and having had all the support he could possibly have had through those issues to get him to where he belonged, on the top level as one of the best strikers in the world, did he show us the support and loyalty, when we needed, like we did when he needed it? Well, I think we know the answer to that. He refused to sign a new contract which is his decision, but then released that "statement", which in my opinion, effectively stuck two fingers up at the club and the fans, and basically said, I don't care what you have done for me and how you have stood by me, I am only interested in me, and am therefore going to use you to get more money and go elsewhere, and don't care what situation this leaves the team, and perhaps more annoyingly, the fans, who completely idolised him and therefore feel betrayed and heart-broken by what he did.

So that's why I am annoyed by his actions, but as I also said above, the club also are not at all without fault on this front. And again the situation should certainly have been handled differently. Firstly his contract should NEVER have been allowed to get to the stage that it got to. The club should have made more of an effort to tie him down when he first came back from injury, and therefore was in no position to demand anything because he would have just come back, and even with that considered when the contract did get to the point it did, and when the discussions started at the end of last season the club should've acknowledged more what a world-class player he is, and how important he was for us, and given him the money that would be available to him on the market, because I simply WILL NOT accept that this move was ANYTHING other than money orientated. The fact is, United won nothing last season so what gives anyone the right to say that he has gone there for trophies? Yes, they have won more than us over the last few years obviously, but it is just so obvious that this was money orientated. Therefore, Arsenal should have stopped being so stubborn and just offered him the money that he is worth on the market. I understand that formal contract discussions never actually began, but I believe that is because Robin KNEW that Arsenal would not offer him the money that would be available elsewhere, so contract talks were redundant. That's what I think.

But then the club, once they had realised that his position in the team was practically un-tenable, had to make a brave decision. Did they try and patch things up, like City did with Tevez for example, and make him stay? OR, did they sell him on to a "suitable" club! Well, of course we know what happened, they let him muck them about and forced them to sell him to a bitter rival of the club, which they gave into. This is so poor, it hurts. We know for a fact that Juventus were in for him, and we know that City and United were also in for him. It is believed that the likes of Madrid and Barcelona did not express interest, but I am sure if offered the player they would have taken it. Therefore to sell to United was just completely ludicrous, it hurt the club in terms of selling to a rival, and it hurt the fans to see our hero (at the time of course), score goals for a club we dislike as much as them. Therefore this move by the club was so stupid. This is the way myself as a fan looks at it.

However once again I have to try and put some kind of context to this. The fact is RVP (the traitor) decided himself that he wanted to leave, and decided that he want to sign for United. And he probably made it clear to the club, that's where he wanted to go. So can the club do anything else, given if they don't sell him, he would've gone for nothing this summer coming (2013 summer window). So you could argue, as painful as it sounds, the club had no option but to sell to the club that was a) offering to buy him and b) the club the player wanted to go to. This in my opinion is the reality of football, the player holds the cards. Because the fact is if Arsenal had accepted a bid from say Juventus, RVP would probably NOT have signed for them, because he wanted to go to United. So I hope you can see the problem the club had. BUT, we cannot cover the facts up, and those facts are the club SHOULD have a) sorted out before it finally came to a conclusion and b) made more of an effort to assure him that they would offer him the money he would deserve on the open market place! They didn't do this, so in the end the club mucked it up completely, and we lost in my opinion one of the best, if not the best, number 9 in the world (with Falcoa).

So, it hurts a lot to see the man who was our hero, our leader, our talisman last season, strutting his outrageous ability for United, and let's face it if he scores against us again, at The Emirates, this feeling will ONLY get worse. However, I would stress that whilst I know it is extremely difficult, we have to try and get over it now, as there is no point, no benefit, of having a breakdown on social media, whenever that idiot scores for them. We cannot do anything now, so I am going to try and move on, and hope that we can, but I am not sure I will ever fully get over it, because of the lack of respect he showed both us (the fans), the club, and his team mates, and also because of the lack of pro-action that the club showed to hold on to him and not sold him to United.

Anyway, UP THE ARSENAL!!!!!

@Mr_arsenal_blog