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Robin, Robin, Robin (etc etc)

by Walter Broeckx

What a boring weekend this is going to be.  No Arsenal game in the weekend, this almost feels like the summer period we all love to hate. But it feels better than the weekends when Arsenal do not play and lose 1 or 2 players in some kind of stupid friendly international game. Those weekends are even worse than the summer period.

We can look forward to the game of United at Blackburn and hope that Blackburn can take some points away from Utd. Now that would make the weekend a nice one.  And if in the cup both Chelsea and Tottenham would have to play extra time and maybe lose on penalties would make it a very nice weekend.

But one of the best things that happened in the last days, in matters regarding The Arsenal, is the coming back of our Messi-ah.  Sorry I couldn’t let that go. According to all kind of sources Robin Van Persie is really back. He is not only back in training, no he seems to be back in full training with the rest of the squad. Newspapers and TV stations are all saying that Robin will be back in the squad for our game next Wednesday. Tell me, is this good news or is this good news ?

How much have we missed Robin? I think a lot. If you look at the first games without him it was really hard. From free scoring team we stopped even scoring, and lost to Sunderland, and after that we had to find a new balance in our attack and this wasn’t always easy.

Also in the big games we missed him. He is one of those players who have the ability to do well in those games. He is a bit older than the rest and you can see that he has matured as a player and as a person. I remember him from his early days in Holland and he could be a very angry young man at times. His ability was never in question but he had a bad temperament and was not always the easiest person for his teammates and coaches.  But if you see him know on and off the pitch he really is a mature person and human being.

Now we can all have high hopes on his return and think he just has to come on the field and do what he did before his injury. That would be great but will it happen ? In fact the odds are against it. After such a long period it is difficult to find back your form. Just look at Clichy. He was out for some 3 months and he needed about 1 month to really be back at his best. Even Clichy admitted that it is very difficult to come back and just play like you did before. He said it took him a long time and I think we all have seen that he is now back to his best.

Remember the moaning brigade demanding that we should play Traore in the place of Clichy after Clichy’s first game back? But we know that they have no patience and no understanding that a player needs real games to come back and to get better. But one must be aware of the fact that Robin Van Persie will have been out twice as long as Clichy. If he takes the same time to come back to his best … well he could be in great form… in the world cup for Holland. Now I wish Robin all the best in the world cup but I really would feel very bad if he could not shine for us any more this season and then shine on the World Cup. I would feel disgusted to be honest.

I also hope that if Robin needs some time to become the player we knew before his injury that the moaning brigade will not put him on their transfer list from the first moment. You can be sure that he really hated it for being out for so long and he was as disgusted as we fans were during this period. He knew he was heaving a real great season so far and he was looking to break all his previous records in goals per season and given assist per season. He was well on his way to score some 20 goals and give even more assists.

But it wasn’t to be for him and for The Arsenal. We can only hope that he does a Bendtner when he comes back. Our Danish striker said at the beginning that he was hoping to score a goal per game for the rest of the season and I think he is not far of this target.

I really don’t know if he will play against Tottenham or be on the bench. But I do know that I am very happy to know that he is back to full fitness and I just hope we can see him doing the things he can do. He can score, he can let other people score, he is a great penalty taker, he can kick corners and he can kick great free kicks. Now I must say that I really hope he has trained on those free kicks as before his injury he always seemed to smash them on the post or the bar. So I hope he can put them between the posts from now on.

So now let’s give him the time he needs to adapt himself to the level of the EPL. Good to have you back Robin. And in the future: please stay out of these friendly internationals. Us Gooners will love you even more if you would.

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