It’s in Manchester United and David Moyes’ best interests to rubbish the reports suggesting that Robin van Persie is unhappy at the club, as the manager did by saying that they were “complete nonsense.”
It stands as something of a ‘stamp of approval’ that fans often need in the modern game: the manager says he’s going nowhere, so it must be true; that’s exactly what we’ll believe.
Should we look to this reported unhappiness as something wholly unusual, though? Yes, van Persie made the switch to Manchester United a little over a year ago in the pursuit of trophies, and while he has a Premier League winner’s medal now, it’s not beyond reality to assume that a player is unhappy in the environment created by a new manager.
The problem with this is that it will largely be based on conjecture. We have to piece together what was said in the Netherlands with what’s being said in England. Van Persie is reported to be unhappy with the training regime set up by Moyes; Moyes himself says there’s nothing in it and that the player’s frustration is borne out of niggling injuries.
Can we draw anything major from the player’s performances? Well not really. He scored on the weekend against Stoke, while his place will never be under threat in the starting XI when he’s fully fit. If there is a drop off in certain aspects of his play, you’d have to look to the tactical setup of the team, rather than isolating van Persie’s individual contribution. He was starved of service in the opening few games of the season, and it’s hardly worrying if a team’s leading striker is looking to shoot first rather than assist others.
Van Persie has already played his part in getting out of a club that he didn’t want to be at, but I don’t believe there is any comparison that we can draw with his exit from Arsenal and what’s currently going on at Manchester United. In fact, I don’t see it as much of a story.
Even if van Persie and Moyes did clash, is that something so unheard of in football? Just across the way, Roberto Mancini and Mario Balotelli were regularly found in some form of heated confrontation. Yes, the striker did eventually leave City – followed soon after by Mancini – but the sale to AC Milan wasn’t the result of one incident.
What can clearly be said about van Persie at Manchester United is that he knows his position in the team. For all the slipups that did take place in the transfer market, the club as a whole still have a clear direction of where they want to go. They might be sitting in eighth place in the Premier League, but can anyone realistically see that being their final league position come May?
Is there more to the difficulty between van Persie and Moyes than meets the eye?
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