Arsenal captain Robin van Persie has echoed the thoughts of many Gooners as he hailed finishing above local rival Sp*rs yet again.
Whatever the complaints we have about this season – and let’s not be blind to the fact that we made mistakes which cannot be repeated – you need to have a cold, cold heart not to have enjoyed overturning a 10 point deficit to finish above Redknapps’ rotters.
Arsenal knew that a win on the final day would be necessary and with Sp*s beating Fulham that was indeed the case, but the captain was pleased that his team dug in and ground out the result (with the help of former Sp*rs player Marton Fulop, haha).
“We knew what was at stake and that made the game a bit tense,” he told the official site. “I didn’t really expect a proper game of football but it doesn’t matter, sometimes you have to dig in hard, work for each other and play for the team. I think everyone did that here.
“The main thing was that we had to qualify, everyone is very pleased and everyone is enjoying this moment. It is just a fantastic feeling again to be ahead of Spurs. I heard that they won but it didn’t really matter because we won our game and that is just the best feeling of all.”
Perhaps it would be fairer to say it’s the best feeling of all under the circumstances, actually winning the league would be miles better, and the skipper will meet with Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis on Wednesday to discuss his future.
Despite monstrous money on offer from elsewhere (and we all know where), the captain’s decision will rest on Arsenal’s competitiveness next season, so let’s hope the club act accordingly. It would be in everyone’s interests to do so.
Robin also paid tribute to the Arsenal fans at home, and particularly the ones who followed the team up and down the country, in good times and bad and some really bad, saying, “The away fans, they are always here, always singing, always cheering us up even when we are having a bad game, they are always behind us. A big thank you to all of them because they have been unbelievable.”
Hats off to you away fans.
“We can finish first”.
“We want second place”.
“We want to finish third”.
“We want to be the top London club”.
“we’re happy with fourth”.
Congrats ‘Arry! 🙂
Away fans have being great but i wentover for four home games this season and the atmosphere has being great at them all, looking forward to next season all ready
Let’s cross our fingers, toes and everything else that we’ll still be singing ‘He scores when he wants’ next season! (oh… and LMFAO at Spurs)
5pur2 such a hobo team!
Man, I hate the transfer market. Whatever you think about international football, at least the Euros will take some of the focus away from the most mundanely addictive event of the calendar.
Too right George.
I hate myself for getting caught up in all the rumours going round every summer but it’s so bloody hard not to.
At least we can distract overselves with the over-hype of England and the inevitable failure that will follow! *sigh*
Yes I won’t petend I’m not gonna be sitting here everyday looking for my next transfer fix. I’m usually indifferent in the Euros as I’m Welsh! But I never mind when England do ok. Or at least I don’t think I’ll mind if that ever happens…
Will it though. In my experience the summer tournaments are great for adding to ridiculous transfer speculation, as players most people in the country have never seen in action suddenly see their profile skyrocket thanks to their country having a decent run.
Now pls just sign………..we will win the league next, lessons have been learnt, things are on the up from here.
is your name a reference to andy carroll?
“let’s hope the club act accordingly ” could be the statement of the year. If the club tells rvp that a few quality signings are on the way I’m convinced he will sign, as it’s not about money for rvp and all about the glory and trophies. He’s just seen 3 of his less talented ex team mates pick up a winners medals at city it’s now now down to arsene and the board. If arsene sticks to the statement he made the other day of not needing to buy as he has diaby and wilshire to come back ten… Read more »
He looked so damn chuffed in the interview that we beat Spurs (on Arsenal Player). I reckon he’ll stay. His family want him to stay; his family are his number one priority. He is so incredibly loved here that he could leave a living legacy if he did stay. (I doubt Nasri will have any sort of legacy). He will get a pay rise; He’s said money isn’t the priority for him. He loves the way Arsenal play football; Only Barcelona stands out to him in terms of football play. He clearly loves beating the Spuds. I think he wants… Read more »
Right Robin, sign or the fluffy kitten gets it!!
😉
our relationship with spurs, its not really a rivallry is it? i mean, they’d have to finish above us every once in a while for it to be a rivalry. they are more like an annoyance, like the peice of gum at the end of your shoe
They are more like that little shit nugget that refuses to flush.
It doesn’t help when our wonderful manager says things like “It’s going to be a quiet summer here” and we need maybe just one or two players”. What RvP really wants to hear is : “We finished nearly twenty points behind the league winners, that means our squad is no where near good enough to challenge for the title. So I’m gonna spend this summer completely rebuilding the squad. I’m gonna get rid of the dross and then bring in FOUR world class players as well as another four top-quality squad players.” That should do it. By the way: why… Read more »
That’s because no one outside of Arsenal FC management knows what they ACTUALLY tell RVP. Everything else is just speculation.
PS your logic is flawed. Even if we have RVP to help us, we still may not qualify for CL next year. If Nasri is worth 24m, RVP’s got to worth at least 40m+. That’s money guaranteed. I’m not saying we should sell him, just pointing out why we might want to sell him should he decide AFC is not the place for him anymore.
No, YOUR logic is flawed. How much does a 30-goal-a-season striker cost? Yes you can get lucky and get a Cisse for a snip, but normally quality costs.
And if we are successful next year with RvP, he might decided to stay.
Well this one cost 2.75 million. What’s your point?
Fatgooner, Point is not about how much a replacement striker would cost. Arsenal management has to weigh a) money from potential sale of RVP this summer vs. b) what he’d get you this coming season. You said it’s CL and the 30M group stage money. I said CL is not necessarily guaranteed even if RVP stays. RVP could get us CL or trophies; or he could get us nothing. It is a gamble not many are willing to make. Look at Chamakh, he helped Bordeaux win Ligue 1 in 2008-09. Bordeaux then decided AGAINST selling him that summer after or… Read more »
AC thats a very good point about Chamack. Plus I don’t understand what wenger is supposed to say other then what he has. No one in their right mind is gonna say we’re gonna buy 3 top players since that could make the existing squad worry and we have others beyond RVP that have a year left. Also Fatgooner saying someone’s logic is flawed is like Kim Kardasian calling someone an attention whore hehe
I agree with you that what I want to hear from Wenger in his interviews and press conferences is “Basically most of my players are shit. I’m going to replace most of them during the transfer window so I can give RVP’s agent everything he’s demanding right now.”
I am being sarcastic.
I think if RvP actually heard AW say those words he’d be off faster than you could say “and that’s how much a week you say, Sheik Mansour?” But he won’t because even Steve Kean wouldn’t be stupid enough to trash talk his own squad like that. The ginger testicle wouldn’t be daft enough.What about Neil Warnock, who was stupid enough to buy Armand Traore *and* Joey Barton? Nope, he wouldn’t shit on his own players like that. ‘Arry might, after all he said his missus could score an opportunity that Darren Bent missed. Yeah. ‘Arry is the only manager… Read more »
Nothing will compare to the “will-he-won’t-he” Cesc summer of 2011. We’ve got third. We’ve got Podolski. The likes of TV5/Ramsey/Gerv/Arteta will take no part in the Euros so they can get plenty of rest before the summer whirlwind tour. If RVP is sold, we get the money to reinvest. If he stays, brilliant. Our GK is set, our def is better than they look.
I just hope we can offload the deadweight and perhaps invest in a new quality CM. But honestly to me, this is one of the most stress free summers we have had in recent years.
Yup.. Its very true. And we got a lot of money to re-invest. You know people say Ronaldo is the costliest player in the world but in my eyes it turned out to be Samir Nasri. Ronaldo was sold for 80mln pound when he had 4 years on his contract left that is 20mln for each year on contract left. Nasri was in the last year of his contract and we got 25mln for half a season wonder that is 100million pound had he had four years left on his contract. It makes him the most expensive player in my… Read more »
I can only hope you are right about Diaby. He was amazing at 19 before the injury. Even more powerful/mobile than the Yaya Toure we see today.
Sincerly hope you’re right about Diaby, we really need that power in our midfield, I think thats one of the few things ManCity is superior to us in-Yaya is massive, skillful, and versatile. We need to look to compete with them, obviously we’re not gonna be able to afford to have the depth like Germany League’s top striker for two years (Dzeko) just sitting on the bench, but we can still compete mainly because of wenger and his ability to find and improve relatively cheap young players
Jimmy I think you could be right, just hope that gazidis gives him the assurances on signings that rvp will be looking for, as not only will we get rvp for the rest of his career his bargaining power could get us the few quality players we need.
Robin signs and we get one more quality player before Euro starts will be best bit of business.
Btw I wanna ask you lot 2 questions:
1) WtsTheo worth paying? 100K a week?
2) Do you think there should be a wage cap?
I don’t think there should be a wage cap as such… if you have a very talented / very important player he should earn more than everyone else because he deserves it..
The wage parity model we adopted a few years ago has proved ridiculously flawed.
Matt what I meant was Wage cap in terms of whole league. How it can be worked?
May be take average salary paid by the whole league over last five years. Find its average and adjust it with Inflation returns and decide the Wage cap i.e. highest wage cap for the whole league.
You can’t implement a wage cap on the PL unless it is adopted worldwide. Unfortunately there are players whose biggest driver is money and if that can be obtained in France / Russia / China then it will become almost impossible to lure players to the PL.
How much is Theo worth? On his general performances not a lot, however if he is instrumental in RvP deciding to resign, then he is worth an absolute fortune!
Thats why I said the average of the league cause lot of player are paid a lot of money. If I am not wrong Arteta is around 70K a week and it was said he has taken a pay cut then what he is paid is staggering cause he comes for Everton who have been in cash crunch for a while. But I get your point. PL may not be able to get the players it has. Still I think wage cap is a way to make sports more competitive. It will give fair chance to every club. It will… Read more »
Don’t think wage cap is viable for this sport considering how massively commercialised it is. This season Theo has been more consistent then usual and I’ve seen him improve in his finishing and his touch. I think we should be trying to keep him, he’s gonna be a top player and I don’t want arsenal to miss out
1) I don’t know.
2) There should be a wage cap, but only if it applied throughout all of world football. Otherwise there’s literally nothing to stop any given player from simply saying “Well every Spanish club will pay me twice what you’re offering. I’m going to go there.” Which is pretty much the situation that Arsenal (and basically every other English club that isn’t Manchester-based) find themselves in.
Can we counter the same by putting less restrictions on Bonuses and more restrictions on Wages?
In the US, salary caps are determined by shared revenues and the collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union. Basically, the owners and the players’ union negotiate how to divide the revenue pie. The slice of that pie designated for the players is divided by the number of teams in the league. That is the Salaty Cap. Teams cannot spend more than that number on players. They also usually have a salary floor that is a percentage of the salary cap. Each of the major sports leagues in the US have a somewhat different model, depending on what has been… Read more »
Now the finances are sorted. Let’s sell the deadwood ASAP. Offer RVP a million pound signing on fee and £130,000 a week. Buy another 2 quality players, of the standard of Podolski. Diaby, Mert and Wiltshire back from injury and I think we could challenge the Manchester clubs. Arsene need to show we mean business, it’s all about the signings!
Diaby back from injury – wow I needed a laugh this morning!!
Asshole comment, first thing in the morning? *Sigh*
I’ve read a couple of times it’s going to be something like £5m signing on fee & £130,000 a week, though of course have no idea who came up with it. I don’t really see the point of a lower salary with a higher signing on fee (unless just to sway the player, which seems at odds with RVP as clearly he won’t be staying just for money), as the cash now could be used for players, and spread over the course of a contract would become less valuable in real terms as well as giving us better flexibility now.… Read more »
As a Wednesday fan Arsenal aren’t my first team but Ive always had a soft spot for them ever since Bergkamp signed and they started playing the best football Ive ever seen. And Im always gutted when they seem to run out of steam halfway through the run in. In my opinion, Wenger needs> 1- A world class centre half. Yes Vermaelan is excellent and Koscielny had improved drastically, but both are prone to getting long term injuries and when you look at the likes of Djourou and Mertesacker it doeant really fill you with confidence. 2- Full back cover.… Read more »
ffs Mertesacker is 27 and has 70 odd caps for the 2nd best football nation in the world (current Fifa rankings) How would you rank ‘world class’?
International appearances and a past record is nothing to base current judgements on. I seem to remember Juan Veron was regarded as one of THE best midfielders in the world until he arrived at Man Utd, and we all know what happened there. Some players just dont fit in, and I think Mertesacker will be one of them. Yes it was his first season and he came into a struggling side, but that had nothing to do with the fact that he looked slow and cumbersome and an easy target for nippy strikers to run rings round.
Matt spot on. Agree with everyone that Mertesacker’s first season was probmatic, but his pedigree suggests we have one hell of a squad player on our books. The biggest question is whether he can use his positional sense to outweigh his slowness, my hope and belief is yes.
Actually BFG does fill with me confidence. He was a calming presence in the backline before the injury. He had one or two costly mistakes but that was it. I don’t think we would have conceded against Wigan and West Brom the way we did had he started instead of TV5 (who often ventures upfield due to our offensive ineptitude).
Yes he doesn’t have pace but he makes up for it with experience and good positioning.
I can’t claim to be an expert on this, like I say im a Wednesday fan primarily so don’t attend Arsenal matches. I just seemed to notice that Arsenal’s good run coincided with Vermaelen and Koscielny having a prolonged run in the team together. I hope Mertesacker proves me wrong as I want Arsenal to do well, and it would save cash that could be spent elsewhere
One thing I agree is I’d love a DM who wants to play as a DM. Don’t get me wrong I love Song’s bombastic runs as much as any one. But that does leave us vulnerable at the back. With no one to break up play ahead of them, they have to thin very fast and sometimes under a lot of pressure its not possible. The way I see it is during first 70 odd minutes Song can sit back and let others do the job. Provide protection to the team. Making them feel safe. That way he’d be able… Read more »
Just imagine if The Emirates could be filled with 60,000 away fans (I get that they would be at home, I mean in terms of attitude).
Stay forever and have my babies.
Why does Gazidis have to be present? Just let him sit down with Wenger, Bould and his agent. Do what needs to be done. Gazidis is a waste.
I think Gazidis has to be present because his job at Arsenal is actually to deal with players contracts and decide how much money the club can/will give a player.
Retard.
LOL TAMCK!! Think Sunny, then type. If you don’t know what Gazidis job is then you probably shouldn’t be commenting about him
Na$ri showing his lack of class again: http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/samir-nasri-mocks-arsenals-thirdplace-finish-following-manchester-citys-premier-league-title-3109467.html
To quote: “I now hope the Arsenal fans can get on with their lives and forget me, they should celebrate their third-place achievement and I will focus on winning titles.”
The little chinless cunt i cant wait till next season starts and frimpong fucking eats the little rat
He’s on a hiding to nothing there. How could he possibly expect us to forget a cunt that enormous?
Sorry gays…..I have a bad feeling RVP is on his way. I didn’t like the vibe from his post match interviews. Seen it all before haven’t we? Too many heads in the sand just now. Back to square one IF he goes.
If I had access to them, I would give you all the anti-depressants in the world, but since I don’t you have to figure out the root cause of your negativity yourself. Why do you say these things? Do you want people to slag you off? I really don’t get some people
It sure was Robin, it sure was.
Now help us do it again, and again, and again. Please?
Can we just replace Ivan with Paul McKenna or something to hypnotise him into signing, as long as he doesn’t make him start thinking he’s a chicken I’d be all for that.
I am in 2 minds. The comments from his missus seem to hint that he will stay. However, history shows we have a hard time holding onto our captains, the heart of the team. Since Viera left, we’ve never been able to hold a team together. Henry and Fabregas were both captains when they left and each time it has pushed the team development back. Just when we are on the cusp of syncing the heart is torn out. Hopefully AFC can break this run. I believe more in this current squad than I have in a long time. I… Read more »
Great. 😀
So, don’t you wanna do it again? 😉
If he stays – We’ll need a New Statue making in 5 years time hopefully with a winning pose that is yet to happen
(and who wouldn’t want one of them making)
From where I’m sitting, I think Arsenal have a pretty strong bargaining position with Robin. He’ll soon be 30. He has had injuries. His family is settled in London (anyone around here who has kids will tell you that they make sacrifices for their kids all day long – I doubt RVP wants to uproot his). We bought Polodolski – thereby improving the squad almost instantly. Manchester is a shit town. We’re in the Champion’s league. We have world class facilties and a world class manager. The players genuinely seem to like each other. These are the sort of currency… Read more »
Agree. I think the possibility of RvP being injured and out of contract isn’t discussed enough when talking about this contract stuff. It must play some part.
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Saw Viera confirm RVP interest It really pisses me off when I remember that he works for ‘them’.