Van Persie running out of options as FFP bites + Yossi decision will show us how ambitious we plan to be
May 22, 2012
It seems like Robin Van Persie might be running out of options.
Most news outlets are reporting that Juventus have gone cold on the idea of signing the Dutchman, apparently baulking at the size of the transfer fee and RVP’s wage demands and switching targets instead to the likes of Edin Dzeko or Luis Suarez.
I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. They were supposedly offering £25 million as a fee plus £180,000 a week wages. And yeah, I’m gonna do the maths for you. That’s 62 and a half million pounds over four years for a player that will have no sell on value at the end of his contract.
‘But this is Juventus!’ I hear you cry. ‘They’re foreign and huge and famous and all that and can probably afford to pay whatever they want for a player!’ Yeah? Well Juventus aren’t exactly raking in the cash these days. In fact last year they lost 95 million Euros. And they’re set to make more losses this year. And the Financial Fair Play accounting periods have begun. So I think they’re having to reign it in a little bit.
And with Barcelona and Real Madrid failing to show any particular interest up to this point, that leaves only one player in town. Our old friends from the Etihad. With their clear admiration for the player, their bottomless pockets and their apparent refusal to take FFP seriously in any way, Man City now seem the most likely destination should Robin decide to jump ship in the summer.
So what are they offering for his services? It better be good right? If we’re going to lose yet another of our players to the oil barons I imagine we’d be looking at the pay day of our lives. What are we talking? £50 million? £80 million?
Erm…no. According to this morning’s Mirror City are preparing to ‘play hardball’ and only want to offer us £15 million.
Fifteen million quid? Fifteen. Million. Quid. Here’s what I think we should do with their ‘hardball offer’. I think Arsene Wenger should sit down on a photocopier, pull down his pants, take an enlarged copy of his actual balls and fax it through to City’s head office post haste. I think Patrick Vieira’s job there now is to collect faxes, distribute post, that sort of thing so he should hopefully know what it is and what to do with it.
My irrational anger aside, it’s just possible that what we’re seeing here could be the start of a huge shift in the way the football world does its business. Fans and commentators have been questioning whether the FFP rules would have any effect. RVP could well be the test case. Here we have the big transfer story of the summer. A player that every club admires and would want in their team. He may not quite be at the Messi or Ronaldo level but he’s not far behind and in recent years you would have expected the huge offers to come flooding in. That doesn’t seem to be happening. If Robin is only worth £15 million to a club like Manchester City then the entire transfer market is in need of a readjustment. Who would pay £20 million for a Stewart Downing when the best striker in the league is £5 million less than that (And yes, I realise you could have asked that question last summer but you get my point)?
If this is what’s happening then the implications for the game and the near term future of Arsenal Football Club would be huge. And extremely positive. But let’s wait and see how this develops before I get ahead of myself.
In other news today, Chelsea are supposedly giving us until the end of the week to make a decision on whether we want to sign Yossi Benayoun on a permanent deal. Good. We need deadlines. We need to make decisions as early as possible this summer and this one will be a tester for what lies ahead.
No Arsenal fan would be sad to see us lay out the million quid it would take to bring Yossi in permanently. He offered us a rare combination of experience, winning mentality and good old fashioned hard work in his spell last season. That shouldn’t have stood out quite that much maybe but it did and he was valuable to us in the end. The question though is whether we’ll be looking for some even brighter quality in the market this summer and whether that will leave any space for Yossi in the squad.
Personally I’d love for him to stay but I’d be even happier to see us show a little more ambition maybe. The decision we make should give us an indication of what else the board plans for this summer.
Finally Jack Wilshere goes under the knife in Sweden today for that ‘routine’ operation on his knee. Keep everything crossed today. Even if you get mistaken for being prematurely arthritic. It’s worth it. A good deal of our success next season could be laying in the hands of one man with a scalpel.
Good luck, Jack!
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20 Responses to “Van Persie running out of options as FFP bites + Yossi decision will show us how ambitious we plan to be”
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Yes, we need to be sure that Jack is fit for next season, otherwise who on earth will Man City have to relieve us of this time next year?
its better RVp to leave because our manager is not ready to buy quality players its only the qualities that rvp can play with not young skippers from the academy unless wenger is ready to spend oup money for quality players
The Benayoun transfer depends on a lot of factors.
If we sell RvP, it’l mean that Podolski will have to be the main CF and then we play Benayoun on the left and bring back Miyachi to rotate on the left with him.
I wouldn’t mind our youth policy and refusal to buy quality and consistent stripping of assets if Arsene Wenger wasn’t paid more than Alex Ferguson to do his job – which is to win trophies – and if we didn’t have some of the most expensive tickets in Europe. They rake the cash in while weakening the team year in year out – if we’re going to continue this policy then surely ticket prices should be slashed and Wenger should be paid a more appropriate wage? The youth policy actually excites me, I just know it won’t yeild results for a long time if ever with teams like City and Chelsea in our league – again, that’s something I can cope with but we’re such a rich club and the people at the top are paying themselves so well it’s all a bit gross.
That comment above sounds off topic – but it’s in reply of RVP’s sale – I’d rather keep him but if we were to sell him we’d cope – as a rich club we should be able to buy some suitable replacements, or if we readjust our expectations his role can be filled by a younger player, especially with Podolski coming in – but those expectations include not winning trophies and our battle being entirely about trying to snatch that 4th spot.
AW should unload RVP as soon as possible, This season was a fluke we normally lose him for half a season and the chances are he will get crocked at the Euro’s
Wenger had predicted already that this summer is going to be quiet on the transfer front. I thought he meant it in general but some doomers interpreted it as quiet for Arsenal. You seem to agree with Wenger and I hope you’re right.
Don’t you just love ‘supporters’ like olawunmi who think it’s better for your best player to leave? Be careful with that knife, mate, you might just cut off your nose to spite your face.
Arsenal have made RVP a generous offer, a salary increase of 120k per week plus a signing on bonus of 5 million pounds.This therefore represents over 11 million pounds in the first year. As Arsenal will be holding him to his signed contract for one more year, he will not be leaving. Next year he will be nearly 30 yrs, he would not be able to make this 11 million pounds loss, with any other club. The only ‘fly in ointment’ is David Dein’s son Darren RVP’s advisor,who is doing his best to undermine Arsenal, due to his personal grudge with the board. He also acted for Fabregas and Nasri use Vieria to tap them up. I must say some of the comments from the sceptics are unfounded. Wenger gave up on the youth project when he realized, belatedly, most players are only in it for the money. they do really care for the badge only the money! This applies to RVP, that’s why it is not financially attractive to leave. Also should RVP get injured in the Euro’s,Arsenal may reduce or withdraw the offer, we also hold a good hand of cards. Wenger will be making a couple more signings, before the season starts. Keep the faith. Arsenal are an institution.
What you dont appear to have considered is whether RVP can buy out his remaining year under Article 17 of FIFA Rules (the so called Webster clause). The compensation would need to be determined and there appears to be uncertainty as to whether this is based on a players current wage or his future value. In any event it might be much smaller than the tens of millions being bandied about
Lots of good seasons when injuries allowed and an exceptional last season.If the rumours about the Russian club are true I say take it and move on.He will not be getting any better and his injury record is sure to flare up again at some point.I dont think offering anything like a 3 year contract would be cost effective for us as it means paying fortunes for somebody who is already at his peak.Lets not forget that persuading Henry,Fabregas etc to stay did not really work when their minds were already elsewhere.
Great article, loved every sentence of it. In my view, if the price really is 1 million for Benayoun, AW should sign him permanently ASAP. I agree with the fact that signing Benayoun would leave less space for other (and more exciting?) recruits but let us not forget that we have many ‘deadwood’ players such as Squillaci, Djourou, Chamakh, Park & Co that need to be sold anyway. Selling these names would create enough space to bring in a few more quality recruits.
Zinc,I’d have thought it was pretty obvious by now that Wenger isn’t paid to win trophies.
He’s doing exactly the job that the board want,and whether you or I like it is irrelevant because we have no say.
One day Gooners will accept the fact that,according to his job description and directives,he’s currently a phenomenal success.
Don’t blame the employee,blame the employer.
goodluck Jack Wilshere on your surgery in Sweden 2day. u will cum out stronger n better n rearing to tek us to d finals of d Champions League next season. God b wit u,boy.
thanx, great post.
cant wait to see how this transfer summer pans out for everyone. will be very interesting indeed.
playtime is nearly up, it getting dark and the sun will be back sporadically and less intense. bolt the door, check your supplies and utilise them to the max. the apocalypse begins?
yes please.
@olawunmi
Why are you so keen to put the players interests ahead of Arsenal – are you sure you have not infiltrated this site!
@Peter
You re right that RvP could invoke the Webster clause – only thing is, he is unlikely to find a club that will take him on. Agreement has apparently been made by all the top clubs not to get involved with the Webster clause, as if one does so it might lead other clubs to encourage their players to do the same (the clubs are not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, but as a collective self protection).
Scott – you know what I mean, I’m talking from a fans perspective – managers are supposedly paid to bring success. You’re right though, the board don’t appear to be all that interested in the fans, hence another price hike in Silver membership despite our worst year under Wenger and the likelyhood of our biggest name leaving the club following last summers departures.
As for Benayoun – he’d be a bargain for £1 million but should we be setting our sights a bit higher? Someone like Kagawa for example – young and technically gifted he looks a great fit. Arshavin should be sold this summer, Ramsey should be put out on loan next year – I’d personally like us to get two attacking midfielders and Benayoun for a million would fill one of those spots nicely.
If Robin goes, any club that offer the highest price outside EPL it should be. Can’t imagine the psychological impact to our players if he goes to another EPL team and win trophies.
@Zinc if the board listened to the fans then every year we’d spend 100′s of millions of cash we don’t have on big name players.
I mean almost every fan this summer is calling for Vertongen, Hazard, M’villa. Last summer it was Mata et al.
If the board was interested in the fans we’d be broke.
The fans wanted to keep Nasri last year, can you imagine the huge mistake that would have been? We’d have a sulking idiot that leaves for free this year.
Fans want instant success not prudence and they demand it using their knowledge of computer games.
Fans still aren’t happy that we didn’t buy Hazard, Matuidi or Melo, remember them?
Yet we bought Jenkinson, Gervinho (whose stats were far better than Hazard’s when we bought him), Oxlaide-Camberlain, Arteta, Benayoun last season. We brought back Henry in January.
That is absolutely excellent transfer work, although the timing was appalling.
I don’t want Hazard for his price the Ox is a far more powerful and exciting player, we don’t need Vertongen, we have djourou, vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertezaker, Bartley and Miquel as back up. We don’t need M’Villa we have Song, Wilshere, Arteta, Coquelin and Frimpong all ready to play the combative midfield role.
The fans can’t be listened to because the majority think everything can be solved with large transfer fees and big names. Torres, Tevez, Balotelli, Carroll, Henderson I can name tonnes more names bought for lots of money that are more trouble than they’re worth.
RVP is staying because quite simply he’s the closest thing we have to a legend on the team. Even if his injury woes come back he is vital to the dressing room. He and Sagna are the only two legendary players we have left. We don’t have trophies, we don’t have lots of cash but we do have a top club status only maintained by the fact we have a legendary manager that works miracles and players like Sagna and Van Persie that can perform superhuman things on the pitch.
On Benayoun he is definitely a player that has a proven ability and usefulness to us, he should stay.
@gunnertoglory You beat me to it with your comment. People spend a lot of time discussing the finances and business aspects of selling/buying players but don’t always factor in the psychological impact. As much as I think the ‘X years without a trophy’ thing is not much more than a stick for the media to beat us with, Arsenal are now really at a point where we need to make a big statement of intent by keeping our star player, making some good signings and cutting the dead wood. This season the premier league was won by goal difference and that can be down to a 2-0 or a 2-1 win from a given-away pass or a foul conceded in the wrong place in the 89th minute in a single game. After last summer’s dreadful mess of cesc, nasri and last minute signings, it might be too much for the team to lose RVP this year even if it was seemingly good business.
Reported Wilshere: 2-3 months out with new surgury?
Is this true? :O
If so second time you have written something about Jack the press says something bad hours later!! haha