The striker has struggled for form and fitness since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement but must now up his game under Louis van Gaal in the Premier League
Eric Cantona. There weren’t many times in his final seasons when Sir Alex Ferguson burdened his modern-day players with comparisons with his most catalytic, most iconic signing. Yet when he did, his target seemed carefully chosen.
“He has made as big an impact as any player I can imagine,” Ferguson said. “Cantona was a big impact player.” Robin van Persie had just made Manchester United champions with a magnificent hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Aston Villa. One volleyed goal was Van Basten-esque. But Ferguson reached deep into his own history to find a player of similar brilliance.
Perhaps Ferguson was feeling giddy – after all, he had only won 12 Premier League titles before – because soon after he suggested that Phil Jones could become the greatest player in United’s history, rather than simply a higher quality but more injury-prone alternative to Chris Smalling. Yet it felt apt. With his imperious authority, upright stance and technical brilliance, Van Persie had some of the hallmarks of Cantona. Most importantly, he delivered when it mattered.
Or he did then. Since then, Van Persie has scored three goals against the sides who finished in last season’s top seven. There are so few that it is simple to name them. One came six days later, at Arsenal. The second clinched David Moyes’s only significant league victory against elite opposition (again, inevitably, Van Persie’s former club). The third was the injury-time equaliser against Chelsea a couple of weeks ago. Tellingly, too, United only won one of those games.
