By Tomilayo Alapinni
October 27, 2014
I have a couple of questions to ask.
How many years warranty did Arsenal give Manchester United on Robin van Persie’s sale and does anyone know a thing about the Gunner’s return policy? Because if I were in Louis van Gaal’s shoes and Arsene Wenger wouldn’t object, I’d put Robin on the next train to London without batting an eye.
Forget the fact that he got the equalizer yesterday evening; the Dutchman could have secured a win for the Red Devils if he wasn’t so frustratingly lethargic.
It was bad enough that the manager had to deal with the absence of team captain Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao but after Robin misfired a couple of times, Louis van Gaal had to bare his frustration by bringing on youngster James Wilson.
If it was only against The Blues that he fumbled, it could be understandable but when you consider the number of points that Robin’s ineptitude has cost the club, and then perhaps the manager had been too quick to ship off Javier Hernandez to Real Madrid.
Against West Bromwich Albion last Monday, even though the Red Devils struggled a bit at the Hawthorns, Robin still had at least two clear chances to win the game for the Red Devils and that’s not to include the advantage he had later on from which he could have laid a pass for either of the oncoming Juan Mata or Angel Di Maria but our Robin chose to send in a shot from an impossible angle … an attempt that the keeper handled comfortably.
That is just a brief highlight from the last two matches in which he featured and trust me, he has had more devastating performances since the beginning of the season especially against West Ham and Everton but those are water under the bridge since Manchester United still managed wins despite his nonchalant attitude.
The biggest problem now is if Louis van Gaal will hang his fellow countryman out to dry. Many pundits have wondered why Robin remained the first choice even when Radamel Falcao was available and some have even inched further to state that it might be some kind of nepotism on the manager’s part but I beg to disagree because Robin had started experiencing this serious dip in form since the World Cup at Brazil and even then, van Gaal favoured him ahead of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and if you are a close observer you’d realise that in the semi-finals where the Dutch national team lost to Argentina, Huntelaar could have provided more ‘Klaas’ to the attack than Robin did.
However, whether the manager likes him or not, Robin has to step up his game because at 31-years-old, he cannot continue to churn out woeful performances and still expect to get the nod ahead of hungrier strikers like Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao.
