Arsenal rejects Ferguson’s bid with Man City and Juventus waiting to swoop

Manchester United have had a bid turned down by Arsenal for Robin van Persie.

United are locked in a three-way battle with Juventus and Manchester City for the Dutch striker but none of them have come close to matching Arsenal’s £20m-plus price tag.

But the ongoing transfer saga now means he will miss the club’s Asia tour – as revealed by MirrorFootball today – as the squad flies out to Singapore tomorrow (Saturday).

Van Persie is set to be left behind to thrash out his future and work on his fitness as he is a week behind some of his team-mates.

It is understood that United’s bid is way short and is not even near the figure of £15m because they will be reluctant to pay big money for a player who turns 29 in August and has a patchy injury record.

Juventus and City have also made bids which also fall way short of Arsenal’s valuation but the club must now decide whether a deal may get done soon in which case van Persie will not go to Asia.

It is believed that van Persie favours a move to Italy but United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is confident that his club stand a strong chance of landing the Arsenal striker – as reported by MirrorFootball on Thursday.

City boss Roberto Mancini is desperate to sign van Persie but the club hierarchy have made it clear that they will have to offload before they can buy with Emmanuel Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz and Carlos Tevez all possibly leaving this summer.