Man City confident to sign Van Persie

LONDON – Manchester City are confident they are best placed to sign Robin van Persie from Arsenal, with the champions considering making him the club’s highest-paid player. Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman, may sanction offering the Dutchman more than the £250,000 weekly salary earned by Yaya Touré.The potential deal is far enough along for the possible move to have been the talk of the dressing room for a few weeks. City, who have been conducting homework on the striker for some time, are confident that Van Persie will leave Arsenal and that the lure of joining the title winners plus a salary that would take him beyond Touré and Carlos Tevez, the club’s highest-paid players, will convince him to move on.The Dutchman, who has a year remaining on his deal with the north London club, held talks on Wednesday with Arsène Wenger and Arsenal’s chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, to hear what improved terms he might be offered.But despite Wenger stating he wanted to sort out Van Persie’s future before he joined up with Holland’s Euro 2012 squad, the Arsenal captain made it clear he has no intention of re-signing at the moment as he wants to listen to all prospective suitors.Manchester United are thought to retain an interest in him, with Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona also monitoring the situation. Van Persie will turn 29 in August and knows he has only one more major move with regard to a bumper contract and chance of adding to his Uefa Cup (while at Feyenoord) and FA Cup winners’ medals.So anxious are Arsenal to retain Van Persie, the club have barred him from talking while on international duty. “We made a deal with Arsenal and he won’t talk to the press,” a spokesman for the Dutch Football Association, the KNVB, said.