WE were hardly strangers to majestic individual talent, but it took us a while to understand just how good Robin van Persie is. The quality of his runs was not immediately apparent to even our cleverest players. Even Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick, two of the best passers I ever had, had trouble at first picking up the speed of his movements. Robin was the leading light of my final season as Manchester United manager, in which we were the first team to win 25 of their first 30 top-flight fixtures. The prize at the end of it was the club’s 20th League title. We regained the Premier League trophy from Manchester City with four matches still to play. Van Persie was my final major transfer buy and his goals, some of them spectacular, brought an extra Cantona-esque quality to an already very good side. If we had a bad habit going into the 2012–13 season, it was overpassing in the middle of the pitch: players circulating the ball to acquire a feel of it. With Van Persie, we learned in time, you needed to look for that early pass to split the opposition defence. Until we grasped those possibilities, we could not make the most of Robin’s marvellous mobility and killer instinct. But we learned the lesson in time to make it pay. If Wayne Rooney received possession in an attacking midfield position, he could be sure Van Persie would be on the move, hunting, spearing into gaps. Robin was exactly what I wanted him to be. FINAL CHAPTER SIR ALEX- MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 08:23:48 +0000
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