Now that the flaring embers that emerged when van Persie called it quits at Arsenal are slowly beginning to cool, I can't help but point out how most fans are poised to offer him a knee-jerk shove off rather than a fitting adieu to a player who most single-handedly kept us in champions league contention and on the right side of the table with regard to Spurs.
The biggest mistake people make, more so in anger or disappointment, is to equate a difference of opinion to disrespect. Here, a statement saying that a player disagrees with the board of directors doesn't make him a Samir Nasri or an Ashley Cole. Personally, looking at its particular reluctance to sign big names over recent years, I feel that Arsenal is playing amazing football not because of its board, but in spite of it. All credit to Wenger and his staff for being so amazing. Just look at the valuation of players at Arsenal in the market, or their performance in international competitions. Arsenal as a team delivers much more than the sum of its individual players. My views on the Arsenal board's strategy are vindicated here and Robin finds a lot of former Arsenal players agreeing with him here. Notice how they are subtlety critical of the board too.
The biggest bogey that follows the Arsenal approach is the glorious success that the Invincibles brought us in the 2003-04 season. A similar strategy magically culminated in the mushrooming of legends like Bergkamp, Henry, Pires and Ljunberg at Highbury. But that sort of success is rare, considering how we haven't won squat for 7 years now. 7 years during which a player saw himself going from the age of 21 to 28. If that doesn't ring alarm bells, I don't know what will. We lost huge names when Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri left last season. We can't replace them with an Arteta, or even Gervinho, and be contented. One season on, which saw us particularly struggling in the defence and the creative midfield, there is still no attempt to bolster these areas.
One standard retort that fans think would justify Arsenal's parsimony over the entire last decade has been the signings of Giourd and Podolski. You don't give a drunkard a clean chit for one day's worth of abstinence. Chronic habits die hard. It will take a lot of good buying to change that image of Arsenal. Besides, our problem areas, our midfield and our defence haven't been addressed. Instead we go ahead and buy two strikers. The discussions at the van Persie vs. Arsenal board meeting must've gone something like this.
v. Persie: You guys haven't made any attempts to replace Cesc and Samir.
Board: We're aware of that. Let us talk about the contract. Shall we?
v. Persie: What about our defence? We conceded 49 times last season. That's 9 more goals than Liverpool at 8th place, and 3 more than Sunderland at 13th. Any new signings to fix that?
Board: Sure! We roped in Podolski and Giourd.
I don't know which "player of the season" would put up with this harebrained board.
All said and done, there is genius that is nurtured at Arsenal season after season. The exit of Henry saw the consummation of a brilliant Fabregas and Nasri. Their exit saw van Persie rise to the occasion. But don't you see a pattern here? Just as players get good enough at Arsenal, they get disillusioned and leave. Their decisions have been justified too, seeing as how Henry has won every title he possibly can and Cesc is riding high on the Barca bandwagon and is sure to win something very soon. Nasri's premier league win gave him a much needed last laugh at a hapless gallery of fans who've learnt to take failure after failure with misplaced hopes that their stars will continue to be loyal to their team. Loyalty is usually accompanied by a reward, which players at Arsenal last saw 8 seasons prior.
As a good friend rightly pointed out, Arsenal fans have responded to van Persie's rejection just as teens do when they break up badly. Here at Arsenal we're hanging on by a thread. We're fortunate to have seen the coming of great players year after year to fill the void left by their predecessors. However, if this continues, there might come a season where this might not happen. The upset of this precarious balance will see Arsenal sink to an abyss which is going to be very hard to crawl out of. When that fateful day dawns, there won't be any great players leaving the club for fans to be mad at; just the pitiful, namesake remnants of a great era, much like the later Mughals.
The biggest mistake people make, more so in anger or disappointment, is to equate a difference of opinion to disrespect. Here, a statement saying that a player disagrees with the board of directors doesn't make him a Samir Nasri or an Ashley Cole. Personally, looking at its particular reluctance to sign big names over recent years, I feel that Arsenal is playing amazing football not because of its board, but in spite of it. All credit to Wenger and his staff for being so amazing. Just look at the valuation of players at Arsenal in the market, or their performance in international competitions. Arsenal as a team delivers much more than the sum of its individual players. My views on the Arsenal board's strategy are vindicated here and Robin finds a lot of former Arsenal players agreeing with him here. Notice how they are subtlety critical of the board too.
The biggest bogey that follows the Arsenal approach is the glorious success that the Invincibles brought us in the 2003-04 season. A similar strategy magically culminated in the mushrooming of legends like Bergkamp, Henry, Pires and Ljunberg at Highbury. But that sort of success is rare, considering how we haven't won squat for 7 years now. 7 years during which a player saw himself going from the age of 21 to 28. If that doesn't ring alarm bells, I don't know what will. We lost huge names when Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri left last season. We can't replace them with an Arteta, or even Gervinho, and be contented. One season on, which saw us particularly struggling in the defence and the creative midfield, there is still no attempt to bolster these areas.
One standard retort that fans think would justify Arsenal's parsimony over the entire last decade has been the signings of Giourd and Podolski. You don't give a drunkard a clean chit for one day's worth of abstinence. Chronic habits die hard. It will take a lot of good buying to change that image of Arsenal. Besides, our problem areas, our midfield and our defence haven't been addressed. Instead we go ahead and buy two strikers. The discussions at the van Persie vs. Arsenal board meeting must've gone something like this.
v. Persie: You guys haven't made any attempts to replace Cesc and Samir.
Board: We're aware of that. Let us talk about the contract. Shall we?
v. Persie: What about our defence? We conceded 49 times last season. That's 9 more goals than Liverpool at 8th place, and 3 more than Sunderland at 13th. Any new signings to fix that?
Board: Sure! We roped in Podolski and Giourd.
I don't know which "player of the season" would put up with this harebrained board.
All said and done, there is genius that is nurtured at Arsenal season after season. The exit of Henry saw the consummation of a brilliant Fabregas and Nasri. Their exit saw van Persie rise to the occasion. But don't you see a pattern here? Just as players get good enough at Arsenal, they get disillusioned and leave. Their decisions have been justified too, seeing as how Henry has won every title he possibly can and Cesc is riding high on the Barca bandwagon and is sure to win something very soon. Nasri's premier league win gave him a much needed last laugh at a hapless gallery of fans who've learnt to take failure after failure with misplaced hopes that their stars will continue to be loyal to their team. Loyalty is usually accompanied by a reward, which players at Arsenal last saw 8 seasons prior.
As a good friend rightly pointed out, Arsenal fans have responded to van Persie's rejection just as teens do when they break up badly. Here at Arsenal we're hanging on by a thread. We're fortunate to have seen the coming of great players year after year to fill the void left by their predecessors. However, if this continues, there might come a season where this might not happen. The upset of this precarious balance will see Arsenal sink to an abyss which is going to be very hard to crawl out of. When that fateful day dawns, there won't be any great players leaving the club for fans to be mad at; just the pitiful, namesake remnants of a great era, much like the later Mughals.
