Van Persie signs - Melo doesn’t
857 guns July 8th, 2009
Let’s start with the good news: Robin van Persie has signed a new long-term deal with Arsenal. Van Persie says:
“My heart is with Arsenal and I just can’t picture myself in a different shirt. I just can’t see it now because I love this Club so much. If you look at the last five years, look at the steps I have made every season, if you look at the support the Boss and the whole Club gave me, the fans gave me, my team mates gave me – this is the right decision.”
One does get the impression that Robin is a player very much committed to the Arsenal cause. Hopefully his decision will be vindicated in the forthcoming years by a haul of trophies.
Felipe Melo, however, seems unlikely to be penning an Arsenal contract any time soon, with Sky Italia reporting that he is just hours away from a switch to Juventus. It’s a blow if it means we’ve missed out, but as I said a couple of days ago, there’s no way Arsene would pay his €25m release-clause, rendering any meetings fairly pointless.
I just hope there’s a back-up plan. Someone told me Sky Sports News were reporting that left-footed St. Etienne midfielder Blaise Matuidi was in London yesterday for talks, but I’ve yet to see that in print anywhere.
Most of the squad has returned to training this week, and you can see some pics of that here. It’s very heartening to see Tomas Rosicky training with the rest of the squad - one does tend to forget that he’s a) alive and b) a footballer. New boy Thomas Vermaelen also looks like a potential hardman, which is handy as that’s just the sort of chap we need more of.
Right. Time for brunch.
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