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After yesterday's shock 1-0 defeat to Denmark, Robin van Persie's summer of football could be cut short and now Arsenal's chairman has said they will not break the bank to keep him.

Despite his incredible 2011/2012 at the club, the future of Gunners captain Robin van Persie is still uncertain and with the possibility of a contract extension still up in the air, hairman Peter Hill-Wood has said that Arsenal they will not compete with clubs offering the likes of £250,000 per-week wages for the Dutchman.

“He is vital to us and has been an extremely good captain,” the chairman told The Sun. “But if somebody comes along and offers Robin £250,000 a week then I am afraid we cannot compete with that.

“There are players like Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes at Manchester United who have been loyal to one club but players like that are few and far between," he added.

“Hopefully we can reach ­agreement with Robin and ideally he will extend his contract. We have already brought in one new player in Lukas ­Podolski and I believe we will bring in more. I am confident we will, in fact.

“I just hope that Robin will be with us next season because I genuinely feel we can make a real challenge for the ­Premier League title.

“We had an atrocious start to last season but we recovered to finish third which was a marvellous achievement when you look at the problems that we had with ­injuries.”