Why Arsenal Should Hold Striker Robin Van Persie to the Final Year of His Contract
If Van Persie’s decision were a one-off it would probably not have caused the likes of megafan Piers Morgan to go on a Twitter tirade, and it would not have caused the burgeoning civil war on the club’s board, but it’s no one-off: Gunners captains seem to set their minds to leave the club as soon as they put on the armband. Other clubs now know that once an Arsenal talisman nears his final contract year, he will not be loyal to the club and will chase higher wages and more “ambition.” Arsenal is a top class team boasting an attractive style, have won more than a dozen championships, and under Wenger went undefeated in the 2003 campaign, a feat probably never to be repeated by any other Premiere League club. But that’s the past; the club has not won a trophy since 2005. Last year’s defectors, Nasir and Clichy, did end up with fatter paychecks and the Premiere League title at City while Arsenal finished third, so the evidence is with them until they are proven wrong. It’s becoming impossible for the storied Arsenal club and its professorial manager to hang onto the talent that it spots before anyone else and develops to levels that the likes of City cannot even dream to develop its own young talent. Van Persie, for instance, came to Arsenal as an unknown hot-tempered 20-year-old winger on a cheap transfer. Wenger molded him into an intelligent and lethal world class striker. City or some other club may benefit from Van Persie’s eight-year finishing school in the London red and white. If Van Persie is sold this summer, other players, including speedy 23-year-old winger Theo Walcott, may agree that the club lacks ambition and hit the exits too, repeating last summer’s fire sale fiasco.
Arsenal, so far, says they expect Van Persie to fulfill his duties and play out the final year of his contract. They may be saying this while looking for a buyer, as several former club legends are urging them to do, but this would be a mistake. Arsenal risks finalizing its image as nothing more than a feeder club to “bigger” clubs that want to win championships. This image will damage its global brand and scare off top talent from signing with the club in the future. Selling Van Persie at this point may in fact prove him right: What ambitious club sells its marquee talent year in and year out? What ambitious club develops talent for its rivals to buy up and use against it?
Arsenal has to break its sellout cycle, now. The club should take the risk and keep Van Persie to his contract, at least for the first half of the 2012 campaign up to the January transfer window. The player says he “grew up and became a man” at Arsenal; let him prove it by keeping his word for one more campaign. The club’s new players will need time to adjust to their new league. Walcott has long coveted Van Persie’s central striker role, and he should be given the chance to compete for it with his new teammates. Van Persie should relinquish the captain’s arm band but be given as much play time as he can handle, as Arsenal step up and challenge for cups and titles. Van Persie may be sold in January or stay through the season and leave as a free agent, but by staying he may earn the club more money than it can get for selling a wantaway 29 year old with a long history of injuries. A final successful campaign will help him repair the image he had built with the fans over eight years, but destroyed in one ill-conceived message to them. Arsenal can begin to regain the control it has squandered by selling off its top players without replacing them, year after year.
Arsenal should prove its true ambition to its best player, by keeping that player to his word and keeping him for his final contract year.
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.