ROBIN VAN PERSIE is ‘sorry’ if his move to Manchester United angered Arsenal, but claims to have no regrets at having swapped Emirates Stadium for Old Trafford.
After eight years in north London, the Dutch striker took the controversial call to link up with a Premier League rival in the summer of 2012.
He had been a prolific presence with the Gunners, netting 132 goals in 278 appearances.
Van Persie had just one FA Cup success to show for those efforts, though, and made the decision to join United in a bid to secure more major silverware.
He became a Premier League title winner in his debut campaign with the Red Devils and insists he would not do anything differently if given the chance to turn back the clock.
Van Persie, who is heading into retirement, told BBC Sport: “I get that the fans were angry with me.
“I was the captain, top scorer and we came third that year. But just sometimes you feel you need a challenge, a new adventure.
“If I hurt people, I’m sorry. But that’s me. I made that decision and I stand by it. But that doesn’t mean that I look in a negative way towards Arsenal.
“I cannot say one bad word about Arsenal Football Club – it is a beautiful football club, I had a fantastic time there. I arrived as a little boy, I left as an adult, as a mature player.
“I don’t have a bad feeling towards anyone at Arsenal, I’m thankful towards them, for the chance they’ve given me, for the mistakes I made over the years – because I took a few silly red cards but Arsene still put me on – and just the whole family feeling of the club.
“During that whole process of leaving, Arsene Wenger and I never had an argument or a big fight, we just sometimes on certain levels had different ideas.
“At the crucial moments, you have to make tough decisions, and it was a very tough decision. But you have to stand behind them and this is what I did.
“I know if you make decisions like that, you’re not going to please everyone. I learned quite a while ago that I will just be myself, I will make decisions about my life and I will accept them.”
Van Persie, who also won a second Premier League Golden Boot while with United, admits he needed silverware in Manchester to justify his transfer and prove a point to those who questioned him.
He added: “Thank God I won the league there!.
“That was the target. In that first year, everything coming together was really special.
“I got half the [goalscoring] chances at Manchester United than the year before at Arsenal, and I scored almost the same amount of goals. So then you just know that it goes your way.
“I got help from my colleagues, from Sir Alex – he really pushed the guys to pass the ball to me. After a few months, everyone at the club had a feeling like, ‘OK, this is going to be our year’. Difficult games, we won. Lucky goals were going in. When you know it’s going your way…”
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The difference in being placed in pot 2 to pot 3 is huge.
Obliviously one is called pot two the other pot three.cant get anymore different than that
*Obviously
Damn auto correct!!
Main point being that nearly all the teams in pot 3 are better than us. How the hell did we rank above them?
@Fin Tastic. These qualifiers are based on previous Euro qualifying campaigns. Generally we have a better record than the teams in pot 3 for the Euros. Qualifying for 2012 has made the biggest difference here.
How Ireland are a pot 2 team is beyond me.most of the Pot 3 teams are far better than ireland.
It’s 40% based on the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, 40% based on the entire euro 2012 campaign (including the finals) and 20% based on the 2010 World Cup campaign (also including the finals). You get bonus points for playing in playoffs and for making the finals, so both the France playoff in 2009, the Estonia one in 2011 and the finals appearance in 2012 earned us bonus points. That’s why we’re second seeds.
Bad news is FIFA use a totally different system and things are so bad we could be fifth seeds for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers if we don’t buck up our act.
@Finn Maccul ehh no, most of pot 3 are not etter than us, two are, perhaps three.
“better”
… because Romania lost their play-off and that kept us in pot 2 by the skin of our teeth.
Some of the pot 4 teams would give us a run for our money home and away in a qualifying group!
Spot on Mick . If we’re going to be honest about this we belong in Pot 4. It’s all part of the painful process of recognizing the problem before the healing begins. It should come as no surprise to anyone if we do not qualify .
Agree, Gerry. But I’m a little more hopful this time around. All the Trap stuff aside – with anyone managing – we were always going to be fighting for third or fourth place with Austria once Germany and Sweden came out in the World Cup qualifying group.
My hope is that the new management team instill some vigour and edge on the players and we get a kind draw – then we have a decent chance under the new expanded system of qualification.
But you are right, at best, we are really a fourth tier seeded nation.
The seedings are always messed up between FIFA and UEFA, just look where Iceland are!
Got my fingers crossed for:
Greece
Us
Norway
Latvia
Moldova
Gibraltar
About as do-able a group as we can get. COYBIG!
Would love an away trip to Gibraltar.
You’d actually be going to Portugal as the Gibraltar national stadium has to be rebuilt or improved to meet UEFA guidelines. Close enough I guess :P
Expect:
Spain
us
Turkey
Poland
Iceland
Kazakhstan
I think gibraltar are in with a good shout of winning it.They’ve come a long way in the last 3 months and have some top quality players.I’ll be throwing a few hundred on them anyway!
I don’t know, I’m putting my yearly wages up for a Liechtenstein vs San Marino EURO final.
Their defence is a rock
The odds look good for us- 23 out of 53 teams qualify- 1st and 2nd in every group automatically qualify and even after that there are still 5 places up for grabs through best runner up and playoffs. Fingers crossed
If we don’t qualify we need to stop playing football!
Need to stop laying foreign games and sending our hard earned cash to England to pay woman abusing drug addict Wendy ball players.
Says the guy sporting a Celtic Jersey.
Whoa, Gibraltar are now in UEFA? That’s news to me.
Fingers crossed for years lads…
We’re going to win the euros!
I don’t know, whole of Europe is gone to pot.
I wouldn’t like to be in the same group as the North.
Ideal group…
Bosnia,
Ireland,
Slovakia,
Estonia,
N. Ireland,
San Marino
Won’t make euro 16 anyway pot 1 or pot 5 makes no difference.
Euro 16 or Hill 16.
Better not say anymore I might get bitten
Would love to draw Northern Ireland. They’re even more useless than we are. Didn’t they lose recently to the mighty Luxembourg?
Maybe they are but anything can happen in a derby.
Maybe a derby game with two teams in the same league. But we are miles better than them with better players. We hammered the Nordies 5-0 in the Carling Nations Cup.
The best outcome might be (something of a Euro-Eastern adventure):
Bosnia
Ireland
Montenegro
Belarus
Georgia
San Marino
The nightmare might be:
Spain
Ireland
Serbia
Poland
Iceland
Kazakhstan
There should be an alternative Euro’s between Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino & Gibraltar.
….who’s your money on?