Arsenal Transfer News: Gunners Must Find Perfect Way to Court Robin Van Persie

Arsenal brass have recently told Robin Van Persie that there is no rush to decide on his future with the club.

That's respectful, fine and dandy, and whatever other adjective that you want to use to describe the situation, but that's not something that the front office should have told the Dutch star. Not to say that they should rush him into making a decision, but they need to find a middle ground.

Van Persie was definitively the best player on the Gunners last season; that's surely something that upper management realizes, which is exactly why they need to push this issue. They don't need to push it by means of approaching him and pressuring him into signing a deal as soon as possible, but they need to show more of a sense of urgency.

The longer Van Persie stays on the open market, the better chance there is for another club to swoop in and steal the star striker and coerce him into leading the Emirates. Convincing a player to re-sign with a club is a very delicate matter and needs to be handled with care.

Let him stray too far and distance the club from his mind, and he could bolt for greener pastures. Keep up on his daily activities too much, in an almost excessive manner, and he could depart even earlier.

Arsenal have reportedly started to reconfigure their payroll and wages in hopes of landing more top-tier talent. Now that they've begun to do that, they need to impress themselves upon Van Persie a bit more. They need to show him that they want him more than the other teams in the running, and they need to show him that they have taken financial action to bring in new talent to help win more hardware.

After all, all Van Persie wants is a trophy.

They've brought in Lukas Podolski and they're taking steps to ensure they have the financial means to bring in more stars, but they can't start mingling with Van Persie yet. Chief executive Ivan Gazidis said this regarding contract negotiations with Van Persie (as per telegraph.co.uk):

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"What we agreed at that meeting was that we would keep all the discussions we had over the summer to ourselves and make announcements when it is the right time,"

"We have to respect the fact we have agreed to keep that among ourselves."

"Robin is clearly focused on the Euros at the moment and we wish him well, and at the right time we will make the right announcements."

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"When it is the right time."

The right time was before the Euro Cup. They should have tried to get this financial overhaul underway well before the competition began. This could be fatal in regards to Van Persie's tenure with Arsenal.

He's going to be surrounded by plenty of Premier League players at the tournament. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that he's going to be feeling a lot of outside influence from the other players in the tournament who belong to teams that are vying for his services.

Of course, you can't make a player talk to you and negotiate a contract that he doesn't want to negotiate at the particular time. But Van Persie single-handedly saved Arsenal's season last year by scoring 30 goals for Arsene Wenger's club and, without him, they are a substantially worse team.

Losing Van Persie could send the Gunners into a tailspin, which is why they need to push the issue of his signing a new contract.