On the Arsecast this morning Amy Lawrence, who had written in the Guardian that RvP made "outlandish demands" in his meeting w/Arsene and Gazidis, kind of intimated that he was asking for action regarding people "in all areas of the club". She made it sound like he was asking for specific secretaries and janitors to be fired or something. Who knows what the truth is. That's why you can't pretend that you know or have a relationship with these players -- we have no idea what's really going on behind the scenes. It's only the proliferation of white noise on the intertubes, and 24 hour news/sports coverage in general, that makes us delude ourselves that it's otherwise.
That material in the guardian et al is all self serving pap briefed in by Arsenal Arsenal has been leaking shit to the media like crazy for the past 2 weeks
Nice low number you got there, rvp. I give him a season of doing well and then back to glimpses of brilliance.
Did they give him someone else's shirt for the signing ceremony? By the way, RVP's "inner child" is a greedy little ********er.
I needed that on the day before our 2012-13 campaign. Quite possibly my favorite post on this board to date. Thank you.
I'm only halfway through the Arsecast. I'll hear the rest of it on the drive home, but Lawrence's statements about RvP's "outlandish demands" were pretty vague. The Footballistically Arsenal podcast last week mentioned that RvP was apparently mooting his own candidates for Wenger's #2 and it was the hiring of Bould to that position that was almost immediately followed by RvP's statement to the fans. I'm not sure of the exact timing issues, but it sounds plausible and it would be an outlandish demand for a star player to have a say in the hiring of the #2.
Don't take this as an insult, but this post just make me feel sad and empty. A great North London club has turned in to a global brand living of a TV audience. It's no longer about the supporters, the ties to the community and cheering on local heroes but about selling merchandise and broadcasts to people across the globe and attracting star players. I can't really understand why people in this age still expect loyalty of players who have no real personal ties to a club. Yeah sure, RVP was an Arsenal fan as a kid, but why did he like really like them? They played pretty football, his idol Bergkamp was there, and they won things. As a kid from Rotterdam he had no real connection to London or the club itself, nor is he an academy product. Many similar kids in Rotterdam now idolize Barcelona and walk around in their shirt in the same way RVP did with Arsenal. In a few years that will change again to whatever team is top dog then. The Arsenal RVP recently played for is not the European powerhouse team it was a decade ago. I can see why he wants to move on to an even richer brand. In the modern game players only care about their own personal circumstances: their wages, their career, their honours list and their impact on the game. After retirement foreign players will usually move back to their home country, what importance does being a club legend hold to them? Imo the anger of the fans is unjustly aimed towards the players, the real issue simply is that Arsenal is no longer able to compete on the highest level due to whatever ( financial ) reasons and therefore can't hold on to truly world class players anymore. The reality is that you either lead or feed.
Hadn't seen some of these quotes from Le Boss before. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ality-check-after-Robin-van-Persies-exit.html
Not sure if he's right. United just signed a massive deal with GM which will provide with plenty of income to pay top players top wages. That is a major weakness of ours. If we can sign similar deals, then why shouldn't we able to pay larger wages to our players. Then maybe we can talk about our long-term plan to dominate Europe. For the time being our football model is based on annual targets.
Fcuk RVP and any other player that's not for the cause. I hope Wenger can find some worthy reinforcements with the £.
I'm sure the RVP cash will fund future transfers, but nothing now. It makes sense too, beyond a few top teams, the market is drying up. We should be in a much stronger position going forward, but with RVP gone and Song leaving, we are almost certainly already out of the title race for this year.
I know it sucks to see RvP in an Arsenal kit like that as a youngster, since I own that exact one, and have many memories and allegiances. However, how many of you, growing up, have never had shirts of other teams, because you appreciated some of their players, or style. I was an Arsenal nut as a youngster, but I still has some AC Milan shirts. Especially since RvP is actually an athlete, and football is his job, he has even less reason to be so sentimental about clubs. I'm not vindicating it...I'm just looking at the other side.
no just arsenal... not even for other sports I grew up playing actually... Arsenal is by and large enough depression for me. You think supporting Arsenal is bad, my friends support the god damn Leafs!