from the guardian

Robin van Persie returns to Arsenal training•
Striker back after five months out with an ankle injury
• Dutchman could play Champions League semi-finals
Tweet this
Amy Lawrence guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 March 2010 00.35 GMT Robin van Persie returns to Arsenal to join full training this week. Having missed nearly five months of the season with serious ankle damage sustained on international duty with Holland, the striker is ready to rejoin his team-mates and attempt to regain match fitness before the end of the season.

"We sent our fitness coach to Holland where he has been doing his rehabilitation and we are told he looks very sharp," said the manager, Arsène Wenger, after Arsenal's 2-0 win over West Ham. "He will be back this week but we have to wait at least a month."

If Van Persie is able to get back on the pitch in a month, he would be available to help his team for at least three Premier League matches. Arsenal play Manchester City at the Emirates on 24 April, then visit Blackburn, and end their campaign with a home game against Fulham. There is also the possibility of their fixture at Tottenham being rescheduled, subject to how their north London rivals get on in their FA Cup semi-final replay.

If Arsenal progress in the Champions League, the Dutchman would also be in contention to play around the time of the semi-finals. Van Persie scored eight goals in 15 appearances before his injury last November.

Problem is it would take 4 or 5 matches to get match fitness and shooting accuracy back

---

The game is about Glory. It is about doing things in style with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom".
Danny Blanchflower

seen report that wenger said in todays match programme that even if RVP started training this week he would no be match fit till may at the earliest

even if thats the case ill put him on the bench against barca (away), spurs and city

im sure if he is training this week then he should be able to play 10-15 minutes in those 3 games

Van Persie is of no further use to us for the remainder of the season sorry

RVP needs a boat load of games to get right...(remember his american style field goals earlier in the season) just cant see him being of any value this season

---

[arsenalsigs.blogspot.com]

Wenger will judge him on training. None of us can predict when he will be ready to play competitively. Anyway he would at least be match ft for the CL Final

---

I'd keegan it, absolutely keegan it! if Rvp developed an acute case of acro-aerophobia

Ive had enough of these girly injuries that keep him out for half a bloody year, if he's half fit, play him against barca, its hardly going to be rushing him back after 5 months out already. What kind of injury does he even have that can keep him out this long? This type of injury wouldnt have even happened in the 90s!

Quote:

Rockstaar
Van Persie is of no further use to us for the remainder of the season sorry
RVP needs a boat load of games to get right...(remember his american style field goals earlier in the season) just cant see him being of any value this season

Agreed.

RvP not like Torres or Cesc, as they can get staright back into form quite quickly after coming back from injury.

RvP needs about 7-10 games to get into form.

---

true OG ... when persie is out of form he can be pathetic .. his shooting can be so bad ..

---

Im Happy with Nicky B as the Main man for the run in. I figure its a Blessing in disguise RvP is out of action.

Everything tends to go through him, and that can make us predictable



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 22/03/2010 15:30 by Ares.

We were averaging 3 goals a game when he was playing though. Could really do with sorting our goals for tally now.
But yeah, agree with OG and Rockstaar. He will take a while to get in his stride. Not sure we've got enough time to offer such luxuries as out of form strikers.

it's his holding play, bringing other players into the game and his dead ball situations we miss most. That won't take much time to get back. His corners in particular are deadly.

---

[/URL]

At least he is back, just hope the Dutch don't overplay him in the world cup, One more long term injury to him and we should cut our losses.

Its great to see him back but i really do hope that he has not rushed back in order to get games before the end of the season for the World Cup, as a failure to retain full fitness and recovery could cause big problems in the long run. His return would greatly benefit us though in the title race.

Even if he's on the bench for 1 game. Him coming on could be that little bit extra we need to turn a draw into a win.

Hopefully he'll be fully fit for Man City and Fulham.

i was reading that article and it occurred to me that RVP is just 26???????????????

the number of times his played for arsenal and the number of times his been injured are equally alarming!!!!!!!!!!

---

exactly AJ. Sorry to say i think Lewis has a point.

Quote:

lewis198four
At least he is back, just hope the Dutch don't overplay him in the world cup, One more long term injury to him and we should cut our losses.

He is perfect for the current formation, bendtner does the same things but with nothing like the same finesse and shooting ability. The answer is to find someone bewteen the two, but without the injury potential of rvp. Whether they exist, i dont know.

If/when we get Chamakh, an injury to RVP wouldn't hit us anywhere near as hard. To think, we had all three strikers out?

If they all stay fit and we add Chamakh, imagine how many goals we'll score!

I'd still rather get Dzeko. Wolfsburg aren't even in the top half of the Bundesliga this season. Why not test their will again this year?

He wants to go to Milan. And even if we did get him, as soon as he starts performing, Milan or Madrid would come knocking and he'd be off.