RIP RVP

Top of the morning to yall

First of all I would want to apologise to my regular readers for not being consistent with my blog posts for the past few weeks. I have been really busy with office work that I rarely get breathing space these days.

I have pondered on the best way to introduce this blog post for hours and have decided to just give up and tell you all out there that I am as sad and disappointed by the events of the past few days. Robin van Persie’s impending transfer to United was announced, throwing 8years of love, affection, loyalty, care, support, belief of the manager and the fans to the dogs to sign for one of our most bitter rivals. Well, it’s no surprise and been long coming since the release of that statement on his personal website earlier in July.

I have always been a staunch supporter of van Persie despite that message he released. In my last blog post, I expressed my thoughts on how he should be considered as one of the Arsenal greats, a blog post some of my readers are still crucifying me for. I have always believed that we were a better team with him in it. I believed he was a player in a class of his own and the way he lit up the Premier League with goals last term was a testament to the faith that Arsene Wenger had in him. I expected him to have repaid that faith by signing a new deal or going abroad even if he was ever going to be sold with Juventus his most likely destination but the way and manner some team run the business side of their football makes you wonder the kind of financial advisers that they have. Juve were ready to offer the player a bumper package but had no money left to meet Arsenal’s valuation of the player.  A section of the fans (including me) felt that we could have accepted Juve’s bid so as not to strengthen our rivals.

Well that's all water under the bridge now and the reality is that we have sold our best player to a rival, strengthening them significantly in the process. Robin will earn an excess of £200k per week in the deal. In fact for the period of his contract, Van Persie will earn over £40million and add the £24million United paid Arsenal to sign him runs to a total of well over £60million. That makes the “money is not the issue” part of his July statement very crass at the least. Who got the best deal? In my opinion, its United. They got the bride and we got money and even though we can all point out to the fact that we got £24million on a 29year old player with a bad injury record, the financial aspect has nothing to do with anything on the field of play. United has a worldwide fan base and can recoup their money from shirt sales alone. On the field, Robin might go on to have another injury free campaign just like he did last season and you can’t bet against him scoring a couple of goals along the way.

 Arsene said after the transfer

"To strengthen an enemy is the other negative point of this loss,"
"We wanted to avoid it but we couldn't. Honestly, I'd rather sell him abroad, to Paris Saint-Germain for example.

He went on to state in that interview that

The economic factor is the sole satisfying thing, but you don’t play with money on the pitch, you play with the quality of the players. To lose a player of his ilk is tough.

The last part of that interview epitomised my stand point on the RvP saga, don’t sell the best players and if we were to sell them, sell them to teams away from England. Over the years, it had become a theme that everyone has come to expect when it came to our best players every summer and van Persie and possibly Alex Song will continue that trend this season.  People readily point out to the signings of Poldi, Giroud and Carzorla and they are the consolation for me in this whole dirty business. If we were going to lose our best players then it was imperative to replace them with players of equal or at least similar quality.  

The new season of the EPL kicks off tomorrow and we welcome Sunderland to the Emirates and it’s a very good chance for the team to show that they are United and strong in the face of adversity and betrayal from their erstwhile leader. To show him come May next year that he was wrong about them, that they are champions in every sense of the word, that by winning a trophy at the end of the season, they will show the world that we are not a one man team and to van Persie that he is not as important as he thinks and we can be great without him.

For van Persie, am not sure if I want to wish him the best of the reminder of his career. He was someone I loved so much and I idolised but he has turned round to spit on the love and affections that the fans have for him and am sure he will find out now that there is indeed a thin line between love and hate. Farewell RVP and Rest in Pieces

I intended for this blog to be an elaborate one of my expectations for the new season and what to expect from our new players but I guess that can be put to rest now. The EPL resumes tomorrow and we play Sunderland at 3:00pm and I wish the team the best of starts and I also hope we couple of debut goals in the process.

Legends come and go, but the club and the fans remain. We are the ones that truly love the club with all our hearts. We are the Arsenal.

Good luck on the new season folks and looking forward to writing again on Monday.

God bless the Arsenal, Iree o.