Page 156 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

twenty-five

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. His pre-season with Arsenal had consisted of 21
minutes’ playing time against Cologne, in Germany, so his match fitness was slightly lacking. The

right type of conditioning was already there but we needed to get him into a match-fit state. I was
deeply impressed with him from the start.
I said to Robin quite early: ‘Don’t be afraid to instruct the other players. You were the leader at
Arsenal and if you don’t get fed, get into them.’ He was quieter than I expected, but with a vicious left
foot that would freeze goalkeepers with its force. People asked why I allowed him to take corners as
a centre-forward. He would take them from the right-hand side, not the left, when he would be in the

penalty box. The answer is that his corner-taking from the right was terrific. Howard Wilkinson
remarked to me that season that a study he had overseen had showed a decrease in the number of
goals from set pieces. Yet we had scored ten from corners in the first half of 2011–12.
The existing squad didn’t see Robin as any kind of outsider: an Arsenal player creeping onto their
territory. Mine were a very welcoming bunch who asked only that the new arrival commit himself to
the cause and respect the traditions of our dressing room. I always remember Verón arriving at the
club and all the players leaving the training session to shake his hand. They were always good like

that. Perhaps the greeting is always warmest for the player who might win you a tight game, an
indispensable asset at the very highest level.
Like everyone in the business, I had been reading that Van Persie’s contract was about to expire,
but I felt sure Arsenal would reach a deal to stop him leaving. Towards the end of the 2011–12