Aston Villa had the chance to sign Robin van Persie this month but turned it down.
Villa were looking for some guaranteed firepower in the January transfer window with the aim of boosting their promotion bid and Van Persie was one potential addition they were seriously considering.
Before Van Persie decided to bring his career full circle by returning to boyhood club Feyenoord last week, Villa boss Steve Bruce looked at possibly taking advantage of RVP's desire to leave Fenerbahce, the club he'd been at since 2015.
"He was wanting to come out of Turkey and we looked at it long and hard," Bruce said, via the
Birmingham Mail. "It’s not often you get the availability of somebody like Robin van Persie.
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"At the moment, with what we’ve got in that position and the amount of 30-year-olds we’ve got I just decided that it’s better we look elsewhere. I wish him the best of luck. It was an interesting couple of days!"
Van Persie scored 132 goals in 278 games for Arsenal before making the decision to move to the Gunners' arch-rivals Manchester United, where he won the Premier League in 2013.
The 34-year-old's goalscoring ability has never been in doubt and, even at this stage of his career, he would bring quality to any side but Villa decided to go in a different direction after toying with the idea of bringing RVP on board.
"We’ve been looking at big names. We looked at Robin van Persie. Players of that sort of ilk," Chief Executive Keith Wyness admitted.
"We looked at him, but decided he wasn’t the right type of player.
"The football. That was the key factor in that decision.
"We decided not to pursue that probably about two weeks ago.
"It’s that sort of level - we’ve been scouring Europe, everywhere, for players that can actually make a difference.
"At this stage we’re not sure there’s anything available that’s better than what we have."
