Vela out, Niang in? + Asia tour offers club useful RVP deadline
July 18, 2012
Robin Van Persie’s appearance back in full training and the subsequent photos on the club’s website have prompted a fresh round of stories about his future. According to today’s papers Robin is sitting down for talks with Arsene Wenger either today or tomorrow or the talks have already begun. The club will force him to come along on the Far East tour which starts this Saturday or make him stay behind and train alone before selling him to the highest bidder who will be Juventus or Manchester City or Manchester United or alternatively they’ll making him see out the remainder of his contract.
It’s pretty much up in the air still then.
All we really do seem to agree on is that his hair’s gone really grey. Speculation was rife yesterday that it’s as a result of the stress he’s felt over deciding on his future or because his wages at Arsenal are so paltry that he can’t afford any more Just For Men. I suspect there might be something more sinister to it. I don’t think he’s going grey at all. I think he’s had white highlights put in giving his head a black and white striped effect signalling his intention to sign a deal with Juventus (or Newcastle) (or Grimsby).
Obviously the decision whether or not to take him on tour is relatively straightforward. If no decision has yet been made to offload him or a definitive decision has been made to keep him then he should go. Until the club decides otherwise he is an Arsenal player and as such should perform all the duties associated with that role as best he can. But I hope that in some ways Saturday is providing something of an artificial deadline for the club to make their decision.
As I’ve said before I’ll be reasonably happy whatever that decision is. If we decide to cash in and sell to the highest bidder then fine. Let’s do that, get it done, reinvest the money. If we can convince him to sign a new deal even better. And if we want to force the issue and make him stay until the end of his deal and allow him to go on a freebie then that’s good too. As long as whatever happens it’s our decision, on our terms and we make it soon. Nothing would give our summer more of a boost in my opinion than the club being strong and telling us what they’ve decided to do, preferably before we head off on tour.
The club took the rare step yesterday of announcing a transfer deal before it was signed and sealed when they informed us that Carlos Vela is in discussion with Real Sociedad over a move. Bit of a sad one for me this. It’s easy to forget how much fanfare there was when Vela signed and some real early promise marked with his love of a chipped goal and that hat-trick on his full debut against Sheffield United in the League Cup. There was that bloke who set up the Carlos Vela News website, plus a mate of mine came up with one of the funniest chants I’ve ever heard for him (to the tune of Summer Nights from Grease: ‘Vela, Vela, Vela OOH. Score a goal, score a goal, score a bloo-oody goal!’ Brilliant. Imagine the whole of the Emirates singing that. Camp as anything obviously but let’s not forget we are the fans who used to sing ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’ to Freddie Ljungberg on a regular basis).
Unfortunately we’ll never get to sing that song as he never realised his full promise for us but it’s interesting that last season on loan at Sociedad he looked like he was finally starting to bloom. 12 goals and 8 assists in 35 league appearances is a pretty good record so it’s ironic that now is the time we decide to let him go. Obviously the decision has been taken and he’s not considered to be up to scratch for the Arsenal first team but it does flag up an issue with our recruitment policy over the last few years. If you sign players when they’re 18, unless they’re really exceptional like Cesc Fabregas or Jack Wilshere, the chances are you’re not going to see the best of them for at least four or five years.
The trouble is that by the time those four or five years are up and the player has been shunted from club to club on loan or stuck in the reserves they’ve fallen out of love with Arsenal and are ready to move on. As I say, Vela may never be good enough for us but it seems a shame that it’s Sociedad or some other club that will see his best years.
Still we wish Carlos luck in the future. Who could fail to love that cheeky smile of his. Plus I’m sure we’ve got a decent sell on fee clause in the contract.
Finally, what better time to announce a new teenage striker signing and we could be about to do just that after Caen reportedly accepted our bid for 17 year old M’Baye Niang. We’ll still face competition from the likes of Man City of course but here’s hoping we’ve already got in his head a bit having had him at Colney on trial and of course the Wenger factor never hurts.
I look forward to seeing him banging in the goals…for some Spanish team after he leaves us in five years time frustrated at his lack of first team opportunities. That was a joke. I’m joking. Come on.
Have a good one.
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14 Responses to “Vela out, Niang in? + Asia tour offers club useful RVP deadline”
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Good luck Vela. Not sure why but he was never given a proper opportunity in the squad. Maybe an attitude thing/lack of commitment in training? Who knows. He looked like such a talent so young but never quite got going.
Niang looks an interesting one. Reportedly 6mil or so. That’s a lot to pay for a fairly unknown 17 year old. Lets hope he is worth it.
PS. So sick of RVP. I hate how all my summers are taken up by these transfer sagas. I don’t know if it is just because I’m getting used to it but I’m also not too bothered what he does. I just want him to do it now so we can prepare for next season one way or another!
I love rvp to stay but if he doesn’t let him go and focus on the new season. gunners 4 life.
It’s crazy really. I’ve little doubt that a couple of years ago Vela could have been about as effective as Arshavin in terms of goals/assists (in the amount of time he spent on the pitch, he’s been pretty effective) but he would also have worked harder, and would surely have improved also. It’s not the loans in the first three years which caused him to fall out of love with the club, it’s the way he was treated afterwards. It’s like we had no interest in rewarding his great form with opportunities, and it really stinks. In the league cup sides, you’d have to have picked him out as the youngster who was really winning those games for us. Sure Wilshere was really good, and some others performed impressively, but Vela was the one making the difference in the final 3rd, but he was completely overlooked.
In the early days, he was miles ahead of Theo, also, but I guess Walcott had to be given all the playing time because we paid so much more for him. It’s like Theo had a free ride to the 1st team, but Vela was essentially told: if you don’t set the world alight in the next 10-45 minutes, I’m not going to pick you again, while theo was allowed to stink up the place for weeks on end, and one nice run or a nice finish every now and again was enough to keep his place in the side. This isn’t a criticism of theo, but he should not have been getting so much playing time in those days; he wasn’t ready and there were players who were more deserving, frankly. It doesn;t surprisee me at all that Vela did well last year: the only difference between his time at Arsenal and Sociedad is that they actually gavehim a chance!
I love rvp to stay but if he doesn’t let him go and we focus on the new season. gunners 4 life.
Bitterly sorry about Vela. Whatever his failings he was a joy to watch. Good luck to him down in sunny Spain.
As for RVP, the solution is simple. He wants to leave. Put him on the transfer list asap.
He must’nt go on the tour and should avoid the dressingroom. Let him train of course but also let him know that there is no place for him at Arsenal come August when the real battle commences.
Davi, Vela had plenty of opportunities, he just didn’t take them…I’m as sad as anyone that his obvious talent didn’t materialise into performances but let’s not revise history until he had a Park-ian level of chances, sometimes it just doesn’t work and it’s nobody’s fault.
Wishing vela all the goodluck till we meet again.
Love this site. always makes me laugh.i actually lol’ed for real in the office about the just for men bit. got a few looks i can tell u
one a different note-
just sort out the rvp thing now already either way i dont care. just sick of hearing about it and all the permutations. sort it out now. let him go.make him stay i dont care now.i used to but not anymore
i care about AFC not RVP.
DS – When were those exactly? His 10×10 minute sub appearances? Ok, some of those were a bit more than 10 minutes, but overall he couldn’t have played more than 180 minutes in the league that season, and he scored one goal.
He took every chance he had in the League cup, and those were the games where he actually stayed on the pitch for a decent length of time. This idea that he’s been given a decent shot is a complete myth.
And did Walcott take every one of his chances when given to him?? How long did it take for him to play well twice in a row? And Arshavin? He took his chances in the beginning, but how much time should that allow you in the first team if you’re not going to turn up for months at a time?
Basically I think Wenger’s stuck with these two more because we paid a lot of money for them.
He often got more than 10 minutes, far more than 10 times anyway and more than just starts in the Carling Cup (not an incredibly large amount, I will concede that but enough to constitute chances that were not taken).
No doubt Theo got longer on the pitch because he actually had more of an impact, he had a rep and teams were scared of him when he ran at them, that can be worth a lot.
Arshavin being captain of his national side and his obvious talent, not to mention the number of assists, despite his roly-poly appearance, probably had something to do with HIS run in the team.
I’d say the myth is that he was never given any chances when he had many opportunities to impress, and I think we can safely say that there’s a reason Theo and Arhsavin cost us a lot more than Vela and have played more, not because of talent as Vela undoubtedly had it, but a difference in everything else.
Come on. Theo cost more because he was English and Southampton aren’t stupid, and Arshavin because he’d just had a good tournament. Vela was signed because he’d got top scorer in some youth world cup thing, and he was cheap because he came from a Mexican club.
Theo was terrible for 3 years, and couldn’t put 2 good games in a row together (in fact I don’t think he could even play well for a full game at all in those days). Teams were a bit scared of theo since his Liverpool run but that fear just made them defend well and I don’t think it ever did much for us – not until the last couple of seasons anyway!
Arshavin continued to get in the team because of reputation, but his performances didn’t deserve that. Like I said, with the same amount of time on the pitch, there would be little difference between Vela and Arsh in terms of output, but Vela would at least work hard and would improve.
RVP – Stick him in the reserves.
Then when Jan hits and nobody offers him a contract because hes no longer flavour of the month and the vultures have moved on to the newest ‘I want him now player’, invite him back into the fold on the condition he signs a new deal.
Thats the thing here. We love(d) him despite his injuries. But if we keep him and he gets banjaxed the clubs with the money will no longer be interested. They only care because of what his current form is like. RVP needs to realise this, the ungrateful prick.
Plus if he goes to Citeh or yoonited after all the proclamations of ‘I could never play for another English club’ then for all I care he can go die.
What happens if we cave to the pressure, offer him the £5 million signing on fee and wages of £150k a week (an improvement on the £130k) as part of a 4 year package and he goes and breaks his leg in november? On the flip side he might never get injured again, but last season was his first fully fit year in Arsenal colours, the chances of him spending a big chunk of his remaining years at Arsenal on the treatment table are quite high, high enough to consider reality and not get bitter about it: the player wants to leave. If we get a decent offer we should consider if it’s the right thing for the club and if the conclusion is that it’s actually the best thing for Arsenal and it’s future we should accept the offer and move on, it’s really that simple.
By we, I mean them. We have nothing to do with anything.