Van Persie: Hopefully Gervinho will be the first of many

Robin van Persie has welcomed the arrival of Ivory Coast striker Gervinho from Lille, and hopes to see more new faces arriving this summer.

With Arsenal in need of a trophy after six barren seasons, van Persie believes more competition for places at the club would be healthy.

The Dutchman also admits it is difficult to see rivals such as Liverpool and Man City spending while Arsenal are relatively quiet in the transfer market.

He said: "I know him [Gervinho] from the highlights of the French league. I've seen him play a couple of times for the Ivory Coast and I've been speaking to Emmanuel Eboue and he was very positive about him.

"The things I've seen look great but we will have to wait and see how he adapts. Every new player that comes in needs time so he will need a couple of months to feel at home and hopefully he can play his best football.

"I think it is a good thing that you have competition. Everyone needs competition because no one really wants to go to sleep. I think in the ideal world, no one is really sure of his place. Maybe the captain and the goalkeeper but all the others shouldn't be known before that they will play. It's good to have competition and be on your toes.

"The way I feel now is that new signings are more than welcome, why not? Every other team is buying quality players so hopefully we will do the same. If you look at Manchester City buying loads of good players and Liverpool is doing it now and Manchester United has been doing it for years. If everyone is doing something you need to do it as well."

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