[chrysostom]

Thought I may as well start the next season's thread, and start it moaning.

I really hope Van Persie goes to a foreign club who have a lot of money. PSG, Inter, AC Milan or Real would be the prime candidates - Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City are all capable of putting together a salary package and a fee which would be attractive to the player, but it would put the club at a huge disadvantage to strengthen a rival like that - not to mention it would be heart breaking to see him playing for another English club.

Juventus don't have much money, but as they're marking their return to the top (with their Serie A win) they'll want to make a marquee signing, but they are horribly stingy. They even quibbled about paying Man Utd 240k for Paul Pogba (a player worth a lot more). If RVP only wants to go to Juve then we're in for a summer more tedious than Cesc-gate, as they'll be happy to wait until next year to get the player for free.

As for the player himself? The statement was unnecessary and designed to make his sale the only option the club has. I think he was told that we'll keep him for the last year of his deal - and if we haven't won anything then he can go for free. He didn't like that, and decided to release a statement which echoed the sentiments of lazy Arsenal fans to curry favour. He wants out, and he wants to show that he's more powerful than the club. We had this with Nasri, but Nasri wasn't half the player Robin is. It's sad that he couldn't handle his departure with dignity.

Part of the reason we haven't bought a world class striker has been to accommodate his place in the team - and his absence through injury in previous years has been key to our poor form at times. To alienate himself from the club and the fans so publicly shows a distinct lack of class - all the best to him in the near future, but I hope it doesn't come at our expense - and that I don't have to see it week in, week out.

[The Deadly]

Arsenal are a small club with no ambition. As I said elsewhere Arsene Wenger's footballing philosophy is deeply flawed and the reason you've not won anything for about 8 years. You appear to be blinded by loyalty to your club and can't see it from RVP's point of view. If you were him you'd do the same thing.

Edit: small club in relation to Madrd, Chelsea, Barca

[Bruvva]

Arsenal are a small club with no ambition. As I said elsewhere Arsene Wenger's footballing philosophy is deeply flawed and the reason you've not won anything for about 8 years. You appear to be blinded by loyalty to your club and can't see it from RVP's point of view. If you were him you'd do the same thing.

Edit: small club in relation to Madrd, Chelsea, Barca

Bit harsh on Arsenal, that. Plenty of stuff to criticise Arsenal for (lack of investment in the squad etc) but small club? Really?

Anyway, top 4 will probly be City > Chelsea > Man Utd > Arsenal/Spuds/Newcastle.

And I can't bring myself to call Chelsea a big club, they're just not.

[Bruvva]

I just can't stand them. Nasty jumped up, upstart of a club. And those horrendous, plastic flags handed out in a futile attempt to generate an atmosphere as "hero, leader, racist" takes the pitch...just...bleh.

[dimtimjim]

LCFC > CFC

[chrysostom]

Arsenal are a small club with no ambition.

We're the 4th richest club in the world in terms of turnover (Behind Man Utd, Barca and Real Madrid), and are paying off a new stadium - something which a majority of modern clubs haven't had to deal with. Attempting to become debt free in 10 years after investing £330m isn't showing a lack of ambition.

If anything you're demonstrating a clear lack of knowledge about footballing finances and FFP.

As I said elsewhere Arsene Wenger's footballing philosophy is deeply flawed and the reason you've not won anything for about 8 years.

However we have been challenging at the top end of the scale for a long time under it - who would be a realistic alternative (who would also deliver better results in footballing and financial terms)?

You appear to be blinded by loyalty to your club and can't see it from RVP's point of view. If you were him you'd do the same thing.

What you've done here is skimmed over my post and then decided to continue a point that noone has brought up.

The manner of his departure is disrespectful, and his statement was unnecessary - his decision to leave is rational on a level (if you accept that there's no loyalty in football [save Gerrard]). Feel free to respond with a post that makes things up and makes assertions that are wholly incorrect - but I'm proud to support Arsenal, and Robin Van Persie is just another talented player who came, and left the club.

The main point of my post is that we need to get as close to his true market value as possible for him, and we need to make sure he agrees to go to a non English club.

If you're going to try and blindly troll, you're going to have to do better than imitating a TalkSport presenter.

[Bruvva]

In years to come, people will look back on the stuff they posted on youtube and cry. But this is fantastically amusing.

[Bruvva]

But on the subject of RVP, he's 29 in August, he's got one big contract left in him, his injury record is patchy. I don't think it's as big a loss as some people seem to be making out.

[The Deadly]

Arsenal are a small club with no ambition.

We're the 4th richest club in the world in terms of turnover (Behind Man Utd, Barca and Real Madrid), and are paying off a new stadium - something which a majority of modern clubs haven't had to deal with. Attempting to become debt free in 10 years after investing £330m isn't showing a lack of ambition.

If anything you're demonstrating a clear lack of knowledge about footballing finances and FFP.

As I said elsewhere Arsene Wenger's footballing philosophy is deeply flawed and the reason you've not won anything for about 8 years.

However we have been challenging at the top end of the scale for a long time under it - who would be a realistic alternative (who would also deliver better results in footballing and financial terms)?

You appear to be blinded by loyalty to your club and can't see it from RVP's point of view. If you were him you'd do the same thing.

What you've done here is skimmed over my post and then decided to continue a point that noone has brought up.

The manner of his departure is disrespectful, and his statement was unnecessary - his decision to leave is rational on a level (if you accept that there's no loyalty in football [save Gerrard]). Feel free to respond with a post that makes things up and makes assertions that are wholly incorrect - but I'm proud to support Arsenal, and Robin Van Persie is just another talented player who came, and left the club.

The main point of my post is that we need to get as close to his true market value as possible for him, and we need to make sure he agrees to go to a non English club.

If you're going to try and blindly troll, you're going to have to do better than imitating a TalkSport presenter.

Congratulations your club has money. The reason why your club has lots of money is because you have a board and manager who live in the year 1998. Wenger thinks the youth system at Arsenal will win trophies and the young players will turn into world beaters but he is wrong. Arsenal have produced one world class player from their academy in the time he's been there (Jack Wilshire. Not counting Cesc as he was a Barca youth player)and is that really good enough? Look how well the youth players did against Manchester United last season, that gives you and indication of how strong your youth is.
Big clubs win things and Arsenal don't win anything. I deal with Arsenal fans on a daily basis who won't wake up to the fact that their club is damaged beyond repair due to the idiocy of Wenger. You mentioned that you've been challenging for trophies but is that really enough for Arsenal? Fighting it out for a champions league place should be seen as failure by the Arsenal fans but instead it's celebrated as if it's a fantastic achievement, of course a club of Arsenal's stature should be in the Champions League.
RVP has come out and been honest with the fans and he hasn't waited until his contract has run out so at least it gives the club time to make some money from his sale. The guy carried you through last season single handed and should be paid whatever he wants by the club. Surely you can't disagree with me that without him you would have been lucky to finish in the top 10 last season?
And don't call me a troll because you disagree with me. I'm not trying to start a war about Arsenal I am just making a different point to you.

[MK Chris]

The only thing I have to add to this discussion is this photo of a young Robin Van Persie:


He looks EXACTLY like my brother did at around the same age - so much so in fact that someone posted it on Facebook and tagged him with the comment "Didn't realise you were an Araenal fan as a kid Tom?" and his genuine response was "What the * am I doing in a Gooner shirt?"

Anyway, carry on.

[chrysostom]

Toph, comparison pic?

The reason why your club has lots of money is because you have a board and manager who live in the year 1998.

This doesn't make sense.

Arsenal have produced one world class player from their academy in the time he's been there (Jack Wilshire. Not counting Cesc as he was a Barca youth player)

Clichy, Gibbs, Szczseny, Walcott & Fabregas were all at the club from 16. The first 4 may not be world class, but their development took place at Arsenal and they're pretty good.

Your Fabregas argument is so stupid I can't even begin to waste my energy on a rebuttal. All I'll say is that Messi didn't start his pro career at Barca - so by your logic, he wasn't a Barca youth player.

Big clubs win things and Arsenal don't win anything.

Are Birmingham, Portsmouth and Tottenham big clubs because they've won cups? I don't think so, but well done if you think that's good enough. Arsenal win quite a lot of matches, so many that we haven't finished below 4th under Arsene Wenger.

I deal with Arsenal fans on a daily basis who won't wake up to the fact that their club is damaged beyond repair due to the idiocy of Wenger.

This doesn't make sense. Our future is secure.

You mentioned that you've been challenging for trophies but is that really enough for Arsenal? Fighting it out for a champions league place should be seen as failure by the Arsenal fans but instead it's celebrated as if it's a fantastic achievement, of course a club of Arsenal's stature should be in the Champions League.

You said we're a small club, yet we deserve to be in the Champion's League? We are in a horrible period where we're trying to make a lot of money to pay off our debt at a very quick pace, so the financial future of the club doesn't depend on an individual or running on debt. This IS impacting our on the pitch fortunes at the moment, but I believe that once we've got through this period - we will be able to challenge.

The sensible answer isn't to spend money that the club doesn't have in my opinion.

RVP has come out and been honest with the fans and he hasn't waited until his contract has run out so at least it gives the club time to make some money from his sale.

You don't read anything that I write. His statement has let everyone know that he will be leaving the club, and forcing the issue. This drives his price down, not up. It puts the club in a situation where they cannot negotiate freely. It was unnecessary and disrespectful to the manager and the club - and was only designed to make sure that everyone knows that he wants out. If you 'love' a club you don't openly tell the footballing world that you think it will be in the shit for the near future.

The guy should be paid whatever he wants by the club.

His statement 'claimed' that money wasn't anything to do with it, so this shouldn't have any bearing on your argument if you think he was being honest.

Regardless, if he was to request £250k a week, then as a club we can't afford that right now. Good luck to him if he can get that kind of cash, but we can't afford £200k. Clubs need wage structures to stop them spending themselves into non existence (see: Rangers, see: Leeds see: Notts Forest).Again, you seem to think there's a bottomless pit of money that noone should be monitoring.

And don't call me a troll because you disagree with me. I'm not trying to start a war about Arsenal I am just making a different point to you.

You're contradicting points that noone is making, making false claims and also ignoring my rebuttals to your points. Sounds trollish to me.

I gave my opinion on Van Persie's manner of departure and where I hoped he would go - you responded by saying that Arsenal were a small club, the manager is poisonous and we should be looking to win titles by throwing money around.

Out of interest, which team do you support?

[The Deadly]

I support Reading. As much as I love the club we do very stupid things in terms of transfers at times. The reason we were relegated in our second year in the Premier is because we didn't spend money improving the squad. Hopefully that will change now we have new owners and the business we've done so far pre-season fills me with hope.
When the new financial rules come in to play in a couple of seasons Arsenal will reap the rewards of this and will be in a financially dominant situation if the other rich Premier league clubs don't sort out their finances before then. Are the Arsenal fans going to have the patience to go through another two hard seasons though?

[Bruvva]

Meanwhile, back with RVP -

[chrysostom]

Supporting a club means sticking through the good times and the bad. If fans don't have the patience to stick with Arsenal, then good riddance.

“I’d have loved to have played under Arsene Wenger. The club are run the right way, they play really good football. I’ve got the utmost respect for Wenger and the Arsenal crowd.”

[MK Chris]

Toph, comparison pic?

I was trying to find one of around the same age, but I don't think I've got one that shows it so well.

Only thing I could find is this one from his school athletics:


and this one from some other time, I think he was a bit older though:

[The Deadly]

Arsenal should draft him in to replace Van Persie. It would be like if your kids goldfish died whilst they were at school and you went to the pet shop to get a similar one before they got home.

[DevilsDuck]

I have a sausage bagel to consume.

Said the actress to the bishop!

[Bonanzoid]

I'm not going to weigh in completely on the Arsenal debate, but this seems silly;

Big clubs win things and Arsenal don't win anything.

I don't think this is true. Until this season, Liverpool were enduring a barren run and despite the fact they're not the most popular club it's undeniable that they remain a big club. In Scotland, Aberdeen are still a big club and they've been shite for years now. It's about much more than purely winning things. Arsenal are a big club, and I have a lot of respect for how well they've been run the last few years.

As for RVP, I can easily see why he wanted out. He'll earn a lot more elsewhere. Arsenal have seemed to cope to a suitable degree with losing big players, so I think they'll still challenge in the upper echelons of the table next season even without him. Olivier Giroud was better established than Chamakh as a goalscorer in Ligue 1, and alongside Podolski there's a lot of promise.

From a Liverpool point of view, I'm looking forward to the new season. Brendan Rodgers seems a very clever and astute man and handled his first few days as Liverpool boss very well in the media. I have no idea what to expect, but I'm looking forward to finding out how we'll fare.

As for my main team, the mighty St. Johnstone, we're off to Turkey later this month to play Eskişehirspor for a Europa League qualifier so the future's bright. The SPL without Rangers will be history too, so hopefully the Js can make their mark in what will be a memorable season.

[The Deadly]

The Rangers situation is farcical. I think the SFA should combine the SPL and Div 1 and Div 2 & 3 and have Rangers start in the newly formed second division. I feel sorry for the hardcore Rangers fans, must be awful for your club to be destroyed like that.

[chrysostom]

Tottenham are in such good shape for next season, it's worrying. Caulker, Assou Ekottou, Dawson, Walker, Sandro, Modric, Bale, Lennon & Sigurdsson. They're a goalkeeper and a striker away from having a squad that could do really well (with the money to buy very good players) - and they've got a manager who could do great things.

I'm worried.

[Johnny 1989]

As an Arsenal fan regarding RVP statement I did find it rather disrespectful, if he had said something along the lines that he wanted a new challenge in a different league then fine but it was worded poorly. Not only in the statement it was claimed that Ivan Gazidez was in the US for two weeks on a holiday, when he was actually at work in London (photographic proof was produced the day after).

If RVP goes to Inter or Barca or Juventus then fair enough & good luck to him but if he goes to City then he's just as bad as all the over money grabbing tossers, what's odd about this is his own family wanted him to stay in London yet he seems to want to go against the rest of his families wishes, oh well.

[Munki Bhoy]

The Rangers situation is farcical. I think the SFA should combine the SPL and Div 1 and Div 2 & 3 and have Rangers start in the newly formed second division. I feel sorry for the hardcore Rangers fans, must be awful for your club to be destroyed like that.

Rangers are dead. If the fans of that dead club want to go support a brand new club, they can do so at the bottom of the Scottish football setup. As we don't have a pyramid system, that means Scottish Football League Division 3.

It's a real shame for their fans, but they didn't seem to mind for the past 25 years as successive owners overpaid, overspent and overreached far beyond the actual means of the club. But having said that, when Celtic were heading the same way in the early 90s the fans mobilised and helped oust the owners to bring in new ones. Rangers fans buried their heads in the same and did nothing. A lot of that is due to the subservient media in Scotland who possible need Rangers (and Celtic) more than anyone else.

Alex Thomson at Channel 4 had ripped the entire thing to shreds in recent months. He's done a better job of it than most, and to be honest it's a bit beneath him given in between he was going back and forward to Syria.

[chrysostom]

I'm so excited for the new season. I know who a few of the football fans here support, but not that many!

So...who do you support?

[DevilsDuck]

Manchester United!

This season is going to be a good one... Rooney and RVP upfront will be awesome

[Bonanzoid]

Tough start for St. Johnstone so far, 1 point from 2 games and with a striker sent off in each game. Let's hope my other team, Liverpool, can get off to a better start!