Why Arsenal Should Hold Striker Robin Van Persie to the Final Year of His Contract
Another summer off-season has brought on another crisis for the Premiere League’s Arsenal FC. In 2009 the red and white lost power talents Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor to rivals Manchester City in summer transfers. In 2011, they lost world class midfielder Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona and playmaker Samir Nasri, along with defender Gael Clichy, to Manchester City. The club has mostly replaced such lost talents with cheaper, younger players, many of whom have not stepped up to fill the lost Gunners’ boots. This year, as the Gunners ruthlessly climbed the table after an awful start to the 2011 campaign, striker and captain Robin Van Persie emerged as the massive talent that the club’s fans suspected he was, but which a string of injuries had prevented from full revelation. He scored when he wanted in the 2011 season, it seemed, banging in 37 goals in all competitions and netting the Premiere League’s Golden Boot and both Player of the Year awards. At times Van Persie carried the Gunners on his back.
But throughout Van Persie’s incredible campaign, there was a nagging doubt that he would not return for another season. He was in the penultimate year of his contract, and had put off any extension talks until the end of the season. Arsenal finished third in the table, and RVP joined his countrymen at the Euro 2012 championships, no new contract inked. On Wednesday, he declared that he would not sign an extension.
His announcement has sparked condemnation and a raging debate: Should Arsenal sell him and buy other players to replace him, or should they hold him to that final year?
Van Persie is no youngster by soccer standards; he turns 29 in August. He has been injury-plagued throughout his time at Arsenal, and was once accused of rape. That charge was false, and the club stood patiently by him during that ordeal and the many months he has spent off the pitch and on the doctor’s table. One great and complete season later, though, he questions the club’s ambition and says that he will not extend his contract. Here is how he framed his decision to leave in his statement to the club’s fans:
I personally have had a great season but my goal has been to win trophies with the team and to bring the club back to its glory days.
Out of my huge respect for Mr Wenger, the players and the fans I don’t want to go into any details, but unfortunately in this meeting it has again become clear to me that we in many aspects disagree on the way Arsenal should move forward.
I’ve thought long and hard about it, but I have decided not to extend my contract. You guys, the fans, have of course the right to disagree with my view and decision and I will always respect your opinions.
I love the club and the fans, no matter what happens. I have grown up and became a man during my time with Arsenal. Everybody at the club and the fans have always supported me over the years and I have always given my all (and more) on and off the pitch.
The timing is interesting: Arsenal have already bought two world-class strikers in Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud before the summer transfer window has even officially opened, and are said to be chasing the signatures of a new goalkeeper and one or more established midfielders including American Clint Dempsey, who is coming off his best season at Premiere League stalwart Fulham. They are also in the hunt for Belgian defender Jan Vertonghen. Podolski carried his German club last season, and Giroud led the French league in scoring on the way to his club winning the title. None of Arsenal’s moves to sign them and other players show any lack of ambition. Despite his protestation that he has “huge respect” for club manager Arsene Wenger, Van Persie’s statement says otherwise: The player is questioning the manager’s and the board’s vision for the club. His public statement caught the club off guard. It was designed to damage the club going into its transfer window, and may reduce the price it could have gotten for him had he stayed quiet. That’s disrespect, and the club and its fans expected and deserved better from him.
This is absolutely clueless. How could RVP possibly “earn the club more money than it can get for selling a wantaway 29-year-old”? Even the most hardcore Gooner knows they aren’t winning the league or Champions League this year, and he goes for less in January, assuming someone’s stupid enough to buy him when they can get him for free 6 months later, not to even mention the serious issue of his value being destroyed if he’s cup-tied.
Walcott is not up to the task of leading the line, and Podolski and Giroud, based on Euro 2012, are hardly “world class”. If it was truly footballing grounds that drove RVP not to sign, I can sympathize. Chamakh and Arashavin are just two examples of so-called world class talent that have turned into a pile of pants for the Gunners. They need to buy some proven talent for once, and that can’t be done by holding on to RVP just to “prove” a point that has clearly been shown to be meaningless in the modern era of player power.
Lo Sbandato, you can’t really judge Giroud & Podolski as not being “world class” based on their performance at the Euros. Arshavin WAS world class at the previous Euro tournament and is what got him signed by Arsenal, no? Considering how that worked out, it might be a good thing those two didn’t show “world class” talent at the Euros this year.
Keeping RVP for the last year of his contract is cutting off your nose to spite your face. You got everything you could ask from him last year (no injuries, unbelievable form, loads of goals & despite no trophies, another Champions League birth) so if he doesn’t want to be there, sell him. Considering his past history there’s every reason to believe last season was an anomaly. Cut bait, get as much $$$ as you can for him.
That being said, who do you buy to replace him? Or don’t you and just put that money towards bolstering the rest of the squad?
I thought this was a political website, not an Arsenal fan blog. That’s about as one-sided as you can tell the tale. Podolski and Giroud are “world-class” in whose books exactly? Kinda glossing over the fact that Arsenal haven’t won a trophy in 7 years, have if anything lost significant ground to the Manchester clubs and Chelsea since then, have not been able to acquire highly prized star talent, a manager who was on the verge of being sacked last year and who a substantial part of the fanbase has wanted out for some time?
RvP leaving Arsenal isn’t a shock, it’s been rumoured for ages. If Arsenal don’t have a Plan B it’s their fault.
B-rad is right. Arsenal got everything out of RVP last year. Until then, he was considered a talented but fragile player. They need to sell him to a team outside the Premier League. I think Juve and PSG are interested. Either would be fine. Just get him out of London and keep him out of Manchester.
He might be 29 and claim to have grown up to be a man, but, no, he’s a footballer. Rarely is a footballer a man. And rarely does a footballer have an agent that is not hankering for another 450,000 pounds bonus through player transfers every few years. RVP is not a man because he’s making the same mistake that most players make, he’s listening to his agent.
He could have a very good partnership up front with the new Frenchman and the German Podolski. The Gunners really are not such a bad squad at all. If the key players are healthy and match fit, they’ll contend just fine for the three domestic trophies that England offers up every year. And they could make quite splash in the Champions League.
I’d really like to see players other than just one like Steven Gerrard of Liverpool who commit their entire playing careers to just the one club.
For one, it is hard to think that whatever move Van Persie will make would be a move “up” to a better club/better league.
Doesn’t a Van Persie know that he’d be a shoe-in for an Arsenal youth coaching job, scouting job, trainer-in-training job for the foreseeable 10-11 years after he hangs up his active player boots? (This decade after playing where most former pros haven’t a clue or the life skills to do anything productive in life while they try to ascertain what they want to be when they grow up.)
In addition, a move to a league like Italy’s or France’s just does not suit Robin Van Persie. Those are not free-wheeling, offensive-minded all-the-time leagues. They are leagues filled with low scoring and tactician minded trainers who pound defense first priorities into all players on the pitch.
All this said, has this web site now gone fully to the dogs, offering up EPL commentaries by both authors and readers? I guess so. Ah well. I guess America is doomed; might as well waste time by jawing over footballing trivialities.