Robin van Persie has faced the exit door at Old Trafford as enters Turkish football in Istanbul with Fenerbahce,
VAVEL have had a look at the numbers he achieved at Manchester United in his first season, and the subsequent drop of standards.
Stunning first season in Manchester, followed by downfall
Despite the Dutchman failing to get the wanted start, coming off the bench in a 1-0 loss to David Moyes and Marouane Fellaini at Everton in August 2012, Van Persie soon displayed why United cashed out £24M to benefit from the services of Arsenal's best player and captain. In the next game, he scored a brilliant volley against Fulham, before he really got on fire against Southampton, with a hat-trick, despite missing a penalty.
Later that autumn, the flying Dutchman scored single goals in one-goal wins against Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City - the latter being an injury-time winner deflection off former Arsenal teammate Samir Nasri - and was, along with Michael Carrick, the main reason why United clinched the club's 20th title in the send-off season of Sir Alex Ferguson. From there, however, it has all been downhill.
Stats decrease significantly for van Persie
In fact, Van Persie scored more goals in his first season than in the other two combined, both in terms of solely league goals (which the stats displayed apply for) and overall. However, it might be slightly surprising that the Louis van Gaal period has yielded significantly less goals per game than what United's number 20 managed under the calamitous tenure of his predecessor David Moyes. On the other hand, the former Barcelona and Ajax manager helped him to create slightly more chances for his teammates than in the previous campaign.
Another stat fueling the impression of him being on fire during the title-winning 2012/13 campaign is how trigger happy he was, getting to fire almost four shots on average in each game, a number dropping as each season passed by.
On the less significant parametres, he even there displays the decline that everyone paying the slightest attention has been able to see. The successful take-on percentage has dropped, he is a less favoured target for the opposing side's hard tacklers and he's less involved than in his debut season, where he was absolutely everywhere, including inside the box to accurately slot home another contribution on the scoresheet.
These stats, added to the fact that he's turning 32 in August and has been cashing in £220,000 a week - or £11.4M a year - makes the transfer look a decent piece of business by all parts involved, although United probably should've negotiated a better deal than the reported transfer fee in the region of £4.5M.