Bye, Bye, Robin!!!

After last night's rant, I'm calm now. And I'm really, really, really sorry if I used unbecoming language sometimes during my rant but that was how I felt at the time.

Anyway, hard as it is to put in words, Robin Van Persie has ceased to be a Gooner. It doesn't matter if the club holds him back now and make him see the remaining one year of his contract through as was suggested by the statement released last night, RVP will no longer be considered a Gooner.
No matter how much he claims he's "always going to be a Gunner", he has forfeited this right by the crass and classless way he has chosen to go about this.


Thierry Henry and Fabregas left the club and any time they return to the club they will retain the cult status they deserve as has recently been shown to Henry. But RVP's status henceforth will not be any different from the ignominous reception that the likes of Nasri and Adebayor get each time they make the trip back to the Emirates.

"Out of my huge respect for Mr. Wenger, the players and the fans I don’t want to go into any details, but unfortunately in this meeting it has again become clear to me that we in many aspects disagree on the way Arsenal FC should move forward."

The above excerpt from the statement he released yesterday is the one that keeps jumping out at me most. It smirks and stinks so much of arrogance. I am almost sorry for Wenger because the loyalty he shows to his players gets thrown in his face ever so often these days. He doesn't deserve this criticism from a player who has been with him for eight years, a lot of which was spent on the treatment table, yet, he stuck to him. One good season later, RVP decides it's his vision of how Arsenal FC will move forward or he walks.


It's evident from the tone of Robin's statement that he is trying to force a move but the means he has adopted is ill-advised. If he had banked on exploiting the goodwill he knew that he enjoyed with Arsenal fans, he must realise by now that this has backfired. He has set us back by a mile after the progress we all believed we were making with the recent additions of Podolski and Giroud to the squad.

I suspect the club will sell despite the position they implied in the statement they released yesterday evening. That is the sensible thing to do.Keeping him for the full remaining year of his contract means losing him at the end on a Bosman when we can sell him now and reinvest in the squad. He can be replaced and he will be replaced.

Still on transfer news, Denilson has extended his loan deal at Sao Paolo and so will not be joining the Arsenal squad when they resume pre-season training on Monday.