In the first five months of 2011, Robin van Persie scored 21 times in 23 games, and would add 37 club goals the following year. If the Dutchman was a phenomenon, Chamakh swiftly became the outsider. “It was difficult,” he says. “But we had Robin, a player at the height of his powers, the best in the Premier League at the time. He had a season that was completely crazy in that first year I was there, a season no one could have predicted, and got better. The manager only played with one up and Robin was never injured, he scored goals every week, so how was I going to play?
“I knew I wasn’t in the side because he was better than me. That was the reality. I accept that. He’s just a better player. Of course it was frustrating, seeing the team win virtually every week but playing very little part in making it happen. I hadn’t moved to Arsenal to sit on the bench, but I knew why it was happening. You ask yourself questions, and in the end it was easy to see I had to leave. That was the only answer.”
Van Persie’s brilliance only partly explains Chamakh’s struggles. More disturbing was the blackmail plot, a legacy of a holiday in Las Vegas during the summer of his arrival at Arsenal, which emerged early in 2011 and prompted a police investigation. A newspaper had been sent incriminating photographs and video footage, which it did not publish, but the rumours were rife and unsettling. If Chamakh recognised he had put himself in an awkward situation, he still shrivelled in the glare, his focus blurred and his mood anchored, while Arsenal’s legal team came to his aid. “They backed me, and I will always be grateful for that support. They helped me through it, but it was a hard time.
“It took me by surprise. In France, that wouldn’t have happened. I arrive in England and, seven months later, I’m being threatened, people trying to blackmail me … It got on top of me, weighing me down. I filed a complaint and the police intervened but, while we kept it all as quiet as we could, I couldn’t explain to people why I was so low. So down. No one knows what it’s like. There were some things I didn’t want to talk about, but the club were always behind me, supporting me, protecting me. In the end, I came out on the right side of the story. I’m just glad the whole episode is over and done with.
“I’m stronger for that experience. How could I not be? When you go through something like that, you grow up and have to come out stronger. It’s helped open my eyes to what can happen, things that I hadn’t expected. Some people are out to get you, people it’s hard to have any respect for. As sad as it is, they’re looking for shit on footballers all the time. That’s life. But it got to me.”
“At my previous clubs the objectives have been at the other end of the table, or scoring goals in the Champions League, so all this is very different but I wanted to stay in England. It was always the league I loved, one I’d wanted to experience, and it was one I only really had a brief taste of at Arsenal. It wasn’t that I had something to prove, but there was plenty I still wanted to do. Palace offered me a chance.
“I knew what I was walking into, the kind of struggle this season would be, but it appealed to me. It was always going to take me time to recover the level of performance I had at Bordeaux or at the beginning with Arsenal, but I knew I’d adapt. It was important to feel I would be a big part of the side. There were no fears or doubts, and there have been absolutely no regrets. I believe in this team and in what we’re trying to achieve. I’m as desperate now to succeed and help the team stay up as I was to win titles when I first arrived at Arsenal.
“We’re a more solid squad now. We know our qualities and want to fight for each other. It’s a good group. A motivated group. We can stay up: win two or three matches and you rise almost out of trouble. That’s what we’re striving for, to give us more oxygen, to bring us clear. We’re capable of doing that.”
Tuesday’s win over Hull was a second in succession in the league and ensured Palace went into this weekend 14th, four points clear of the cut-off, which is remarkable given they had been bottom with only four points on Pulis’s appointment in November. The upturn has been born of rugged industry and endeavour, qualities some doubted Chamakh possessed, yet he has come to personify their revival.
“Mesut Özil’s arrival has lifted them, not just the team but the entire club. It’s great for the morale of the players to be alongside Özil, a player they can give the ball to and he can produce anything. That magic they need.
“It’s maybe up front where they don’t have the numbers, and [Olivier] Giroud has to play every match. He’s taken on a tremendous workload, but has done so well. I’m pleased for him. I hope they go on and win it. They’re ready.”
So, too, is Chamakh to prove there is life after Arsenal. He has more to show the Premier League.
Written by Steve Milne
