Former Manchester United fan favorite, Robin Van Persie, has revealed the acrimonious way he was shown the exit door by former Manchester United coach Louis Van Gaal.
Van Persie was bought in 2012 by legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson for 30 million pounds and repaid the faith shown in him by banging in 30 goals to help Manchester United secure their 20th and last premier league title.
After the title win, Ferguson retired but his successor Moyes was soon sacked and then Van Gaal brought in to steady the ship.
Van Gaal reduced Robin to a bench player during his time and one day told Van Persie he had to leave the club, a decision Van Persie said he didn’t want to make at the time as his family were settled in England.
Van Gaal frustrated with his fellow Dutch, during the next transfer window, sold Van Persie to Fenerbahce for a cut-price fee of £4 million a year before his deal was to expire.
“I had this chat with Louis van Gaal and he told me: ‘OK Robin, our ways will part. I’m the coach, you’re the player – you have to go, your time is up’,” Van Persie told the High Performance Podcast.
“I was like: ‘Yeah but I still have a contract?’ He said: ‘I don’t care’.
“Ruthless. Towards the end of it, I saw something coming but not this ruthless. And the way he said it as well. And then a lot of things go through your mind when you get a message like that.
“I still had a contract, my family was happy, it was my 11th year in England, We love living in England. What’s next?
“My kids are going to school, they have their friends and everything. So in a split second, all these things come across [your mind]. How do you react to that?
“I said: ‘We will see what happens. That’s your opinion. But I have a contract and I’m happy in England at Manchester United. So we will see what happens’. And I stood up, shook his hand and left it.”
Van Persie then says he remembered how he tried acting as the mature one after he was left out of a training match by Van Gaal.
“On the way home back I was thinking: ‘Okay, this is tough. How do you react to a message like that?’,” he added.
“That ruthless, that hard, that direct. And then loads of things came through my mind and we started pre-season. I wasn’t allowed to play in the 11 vs 11 and I was given a ball and told to do my own stuff.
“So you try to stay calm, stay cool but there’s loads of things happening. You’re playing the macho card. ‘It doesn’t affect me’ but it does. It does affect me, my family and my career. Big time.
“But I tried to stay cool, but maybe at that point it was good for me to talk to someone outside of my inner circle but I was too stubborn to do that.
“Now if I look back at it, there was a couple of points in my career where I should have done that.”
