Wenger says red Robin must learn ‘intelligent behaviour’

ARSENE WENGER admitted that Robin van Persie still has plenty to learn about football in the Premiership after the Dutchman became the latest Arsenal striker to demonstrate a lack of discipline.

The Gunners boss would relish a selection dilemma for tomorrow night’s FA Cup fifth-round replay at Sheffield United, but now he will have no such luxury.

Wenger added: “He knows he should not have done what he did. I could not support him. Intelligent behaviour is needed on the pitch to win matches and he knows it was important for us to stay 11 against 10 but if he cannot maintain that goal it is a problem for him mentally to adapt to.”

Dennis Bergkamp and Jose Antonio Reyes are, like Van Persie, banned for the trip to Yorkshire, the game on which Arsenal’s hopes of silverware this season might now hinge.

Not only would defeat at Bramall Lane knock them out of the cup, it would also be a disaster for morale ahead of the second leg of their Champions League tie with Bayern Munich, in which they trail 3-1.

There have even been the now customary panic-stricken calls to phone-in shows calling for Wenger to consider his position as manager.

Van Persie’s red card against Saints was the 58th by an Arsenal player under Wenger’s reign, and there was little to warm a mood made icy and sombre by Champions League humiliation in Munich last Tuesday.

Now Wenger must once again pit his wits against Neil Warnock and his Blades in what promises to be an absorbing FA Cup tie.

Cruising at 1-0 against the 10-men Saints thanks to Freddie Ljungberg’s tap-in, Van Persie lunged into a challenge of Graeme Le Saux and received a second booking and subsequent red from referee Alan Wiley, following the home side’s David Prutton in being sent for an early bath.

Southampton boss Harry Redknapp, whose side levelled through Peter Crouch, quipped: “Luckily, the other side had a stupid player as well and he let us right back in it.”

Wenger offered no excuses for his errant Dutchman. “You just hope he will learn from it,” said the manager. “He was warned at half-time that the referee was under pressure to send off a player from our side and even things up and having been booked he was an obvious target.”

Van Persie is likely to receive only a one-match ban, with Cesc Fabregas ready to return from his suspension.

Young reserve strikers Artur Lupoli and Quincy Owusu Abeyie are set to make the trip to Sheffield, together with Jeremie Aliadiere, fit for the first time since the season’s opening day.