RVP and Arsenal’s bitter divorce.

First off, if you were looking for an RVP bashing, you’re looking in the wrong place. The guy has acted as a bit of a weasel but I don’t think you and I would act differently in the circumstances. If you were offered a job in different company, to do less work (read, not having to shoulder your team’s goal-scoring burden), earn twice as much and have better benefits (read trophies),  you’d take it. It’s human nature.

Arsenal fans are some of the most passionate soccer fans I have ever met but most of the time they are quite delusional. In this era of super clubs like Chelsea, Man City and the Spanish giants, Arsenal were never going to win a trophy of substance. Van Persie knows it, Wenger knows it and so does the whole non-delusional world. So RVP did what he had to do but Arsenal’s fans anger is misdirected. I think the Arsenal board, and Arsene Wenger should take the blame for this mess.

The joke is definitely on Wenger

The Arsenal management seems to be the opposite of their fans. All they care about is making money. That’s why they are so proud of finishing third every season and qualifying for the Champions’ League. That’s why they don’t care that the club hasn’t won a trophy in seven years. And that’s why they didn’t let RVP rot in the reserves rather than selling him to a perennial rival, as any decent board would have done. Then again, it seems Arsenal don’t consider the Manchester clubs as rivals anymore because the Gunners have become something of an academy for them; and the Manchester clubs don’t consider third place finishes as achievements.

Anyone remember when Gabriel Heinze wanted to leave Manchester United for Liverpool? Sir Alex Ferguson said, in very polite terms, that such a thing would happen over his dead body. Whenever Sir Alex sells his best players, he always sells them to foreign clubs. You can’t make your rivals stronger and hope to compete with them. It’s the art of war 101. How Wenger can allow such nonsense to happen season after season is testament to the fact that he should be a talent scout rather than a manager? In all honesty, I don’t think Fergie would sell a Rooney or a Nani to Arsenal even if they offered the ridiculous buy-out fees that FC Porto puts in their players contracts. He can sell them Silvestre though.

Arsene Wenger has been shown for the punk that he is and I don’t think this will be the end of him being punked. He always trusts that his players will repay him for making them superstars and they turn around on him in heartbeat. But like a woman who keeps getting cheated on and apologised to, he never learns. He always thinks things will be different this time. Why does he let players reach the last year of their contracts before begging them to stay? Why not re-negotiate with two or three years left on the contract? In this way, the players wouldn't have any leverage to make the club and their mentor look spineless.