Robin Van Perfect
April 24th, 2012 | Posted by in UncategorizedRobin Van Persie was today crowned the Football Writers Player of the Year to mark an impressive personal double, following the PFA Player of the Year award he picked up on Sunday. Trophy drought my arse.
We’re lucky to have him and who knows what this season would have been like without him – Chamakh up front on his own is a scary thought. Robin describes himself as a number ’9 and a half’, someone who can play that lead striker role but also likes to drop deep and join in with the link up play. Some said (and still say) that he’s not a natural striker and couldn’t lead the line, but he’s proved those doubters wrong by scoring like a billion goals. Fitness had been the issue in years gone by, he never stayed on the pitch long enough to show his undoubted ability and class, but this year he’s finally been clear of injury. Cesc’s departure in the summer left Van Persie as the obvious choice to step forward into the captaincy, and he has lead terrifically by example this year. Particular highlights (of which there are many) would be the goals at Chelsea, Liverpool and at home against Dortmund and Everton. He doesn’t often score tap-ins. Had his chip against Milan gone in we might have been watching Arsenal in tonight’s Champions League semi-final, but I’m willing to cut him a little slack.
This gushing praise however is tinged with uncertainty and worry that we as Gooners may be watching Van Persie’s last days at the club. His contract is expiring at the end of next season and the long awaited sit down with Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis is due to take place before Robin shoots off to the Euros. Assuming we make the top 4 (which is by no means assured) I think he’ll stay, I really do. If we don’t make it, I think there’s a real possibility that he’ll want to leave, and in that case the club will have an almighty decision to make with regards to next season. Robin is 28 now so this is probably the last chance he will have to make that mammoth move to Italy or Spain which I’m sure he has been tempted to do. As with the Nasri situation, the club could decide to sell him for a good price now and reinvest that money in the squad (reinvest, fat chance), or they could make him stay (potentially against his will) for another year with the likelihood that he would leave for nothing in June 2013. Unlike the Nasri situation, I don’t feel that we can afford to lose Robin, he has to stay next year under any circumstances. If he wanted to leave, once the season gets going he’d get his head down and play, score goals and win us matches, he wouldn’t fuck off to Argentina for 3 months. Hopefully though we won’t need to cross that bridge, and the lad will put pen to paper in the next month or so. You know it makes sense.
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Adams had also been at the club since the age of 14 and in the first team for 19 years. If you had been at a job for 22 years, wouldn’t you want to be one of the hgeihst paid?RVP is also almost 30 and so injuries will be harder to deal with, so he would do better staying where he is as the medical staff and Wenger know how to deal with him best. Walcott signed when he was 16 (so only 5 years) and he has improved a lot since then. Watch videos over the last 5 years and you’ll see it. He can only get better. Wenger is tunring him into another Henry and considering his natural position is a striker (which i’m sure you know after doing some research from his southampton days), I am of the opinion Wenger knows what he is doing and this will work out in the end. Henry was a winger until Wenger bought him and moulded him into a striker.You mean the CIty bench that has caused problems in the past and will continue to do so while they are all egos that want to play? The City way is get rid of anyone that causes a problem because they essentially have unlimited funds, with the owners acting as if this were Football Manager’. If Arsene had a blank cheque then he would have your fantasy bench but it doesn’t work like that. Also, Chamakh is void of confidence (as evident yesterday) due to the lack of game time he will get while van Persie is in form. Start of last season van Persie is injured, Chamakh gets a run of games and ends up with 10 goals. Fatigue and a lot of time spent on the bench affected him more than fans think. 2 0