Robin van Persie to meet with Arsène Wenger before Malaysia trip

There are obviously several issues facing Arsenal at the moment with regards to personnel, but the largest continues to be what to do about Robin van Persie. There weren't many solid new developments in the story over the past few days other than the Dutch striker showing up for training with a touch of gray. However, Jeremy Wilson of the Daily Telegraph left a little twitter action this evening to whet everyone's appetite for the coming days:

Wenger and RVP to hold formal talks in next few days - no decision yet on if he'll travel with squad to Malaysia on Sat

— Jeremy Wilson (@JWTelegraph) July 17, 2012

So. Given the outcome of the previous discussion between the two parties above, these talks could prove somewhat interesting. There are, of course, a number of possible outcomes: van Persie changes his mind and signs a new deal (about 0.01% likely), nothing much happens at all, because no clubs have lodged a formal bid yet (like 99.9% likely), or Man City make an immediate bid (not likely at all, as there is no reason to do this whatsoever from City's perspective, unless other teams start making a lot of noise).

The big decision is whether to take van Persie on the club's Asian tour, and one suspects that unless something drastic happens before Saturday, the club will take him. Leaving him behind would send weird signals and wouldn't really help get van Persie ready to play in case he is still here come mid-August. More will probably be known on Sunday, as Wilson points out.

So, in short, expect something to at least be resolved internally before the club departs for Asia in the next few days, but don't expect much of a big public reveal, as such a thing would damage all kinds of negotiating leverage for both sides. It's going to be a while for us, but at least things are apparently happening.