Arsenal's manager Arsene Wenger will spend the opening few weeks of the summer recess trying to convince Emmanuel Petit that he is not the victim of a conspiratorial vendetta by Premiership referees.

Yesterday the French international midfielder reiterated the belief that his career would be best served by placing as much distance between himself and English soil as was possible.

Although Petit insists that his proclaimed desire to leave Arsenal at the end of the current season is a direct consequence of over-zealous refereeing, the suspicion remains that his head may well have been turned by the lure of the lira.

Since scoring the final goal in France's World Cup final success over Brazil last July, Petit has moved smartly up the wish lists of at least three major Italian clubs - Lazio, Inter Milan and Sampdoria. Indeed, rumours persist that Lazio, the current Serie A leaders, would be willing to pay £8 million for Petit just only 17 months after he arrived at Highbury from Monaco for a mere pounds £3.5 million.

However, Wenger cautioned: "In Italy they throw away as quickly as they buy. He knows what he has done here and what he can get from English football.

"The most important things in your professional life are to know that you can achieve something and that you get the respect you deserve - and I think he has that.

"I have many players calling from Italy who want to come to England. We have built a team with big potential, which can still improve.

"I know that Arsenal and English football are good for Emmanuel Petit and basically he's happy here."

However, as Petit looked for sympathy and attempted to blame others for four sendings off in less than two seasons, his agent, Jerome Anderson, struck a more cautious note: "We are dealing with an individual who, at times, does change his mind," he said.

Petit's sense of unease with an apparent dislike of English referees manifested itself in some rather unpleasant scenes following his dismissal against Everton at Goodison Park last weekend.

As he made his way towards the dressing-rooms after being red sent off carded by the Sheffield official Uriah Rennie Petit tossed away his shin guards and shouted: "That's me finished with English football." It was a sentiment he was to echo once again yesterday.

"I am totally fed up with what has been happening; I've just had enough and I won't change my mind," he said. "If I am going to be shown the yellow card every time I open my mouth or make a mistake - while others are getting away with much more - I am wasting my time here."

Petit yesterday won improbable support from the one-time hardline referee Clive Thomas, who said he believed that referees were persecuting him.

"It doesn't surprise me that we have players who are disenchanted and who want to get out of the English game because of bad refereeing," he said. "I sympathise with Petit. What concerns me is the standard of English referees. We need to do something to save the game," he added.

Chelsea's multi-million pound footballers were involved in an aircraft landing scare yesterday that left their plane captain "as white as a ghost".

The crew of an Airbus A321 bringing the team back from a European match in Norway had to abort its landing just 25 seconds from touchdown at Heathrow airport.

Amid gasps from the players among the 95 on board, the plane - operated by Air 2000 - went into took a steep climb away and headed for Gatwick airport, as there were no baggage handlers available at Heathrow.

Chelsea chairman Ken Bates said: "The pilot told me he had been in continual radio contact with Heathrow from 30 minutes outside the airport but was then suddenly ordered to abort his landing with just 25 seconds to go.

"I intend to find out exactly what went wrong to cause this to happen. We are not very happy about it, to say the least, because apart from it being a very worrying moment it meant we had to completely rearrange people's travelling arrangements back to their homes."

The drama happened at 1.30 a.m, following Chelsea's successful Cup Winners' Cup match with Norwegian club Valerenga on Thursday night.

Ajax's Finnish forward Jari Litmanen has signed a four-and-a-half year deal with Spanish league leaders Barcelona, according to daily paper Marca.