How can one remain civil after this Van Persie betrayal?

If you’re a fan of CSI Miami like I am you will have seen that promotion where Detective Horatio Caine is shot and supposedly “dies”; or at least everyone thinks he has died. The promo centres around his colleagues slowly finding out that he has died and the theme is “have you heard,” which goes out repeatedly in whispers.

His colleagues cry and mourn him and of course being non fiction, the rumours turn out to be untrue and the hero turns out to be alive. Eventually CSI was cancelled this year perhaps because it was so far-fetched. In reality the rumours turn out to be true more often than not. Infact Robin Van Persie’s impending departure from Arsenal stopped being a rumour months ago.

The question though was where would he go and the belief was that he would respect the club that supported him through very tough times and not move to the direct competition. I remember when Chelsea came knocking for Ashley Cole several years ago and the thought of a player moving from one top club to another was unthinkable. The Cole move though was easier to swallow as we inherited a world class defender in the switch, William Gallas.

Trading of players between top clubs has become more frequent in recent years but it’s still frowned upon. And right now I am frowning with every muscle in my brow because RVP has stabbed Arsenal in the back. It would have been easier to swallow him moving to Spain or Italy; at the very worst I would have expected him to join Manchester City who we are yet to see whether are pretenders or real champions, but despite all the rumours in the past couple of weeks, I never really expected him to move to Manchester United; our eternal bitter rivals. However RVP himself isn’t alone to blame in this.

Why did the Arsenal boardroom and manager Arsene Wenger allow this? Sir Alex Ferguson would never in a million years allow a player like Wayne Rooney in his current form; play for another top side in the league no matter how much money you were throwing at him. It just wouldn’t happen! Infact the calibre of player that Sir Alex would allow Arsenal to buy from United was Mikael Sylvestre! Yes! Don’t you feel a little stupid right now? I do! I feel Wenger’s betrayal and naivety just as much as I feel hard done by, by RVP.

Losing Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and the likes was tough to bear, and losing Alex Song to Barcelona will be tough, but this is yet the toughest to bear. Even Fabregas was shocked by the move and tweeted as much. When the news broke that Arsenal had agreed a fee with Man United for RVP, Gunners released a lot of bile towards the player on social media. I felt some of the comments were a little harsh but when I thought about it; I wanted to say a lot of that stuff myself. Leaving was tough to bear; leaving for our greatest rival... unprintable! Talk to me on @CarolRadull on twitter or Carol Radull on facebook