General Mirth wrote:

Vantastic wrote:

I don't think he plays well when the team is under the cosh or playing badly.

WHAT?

That was my exact reaction on reading that particular sentence

Fergie would have stuck Wellbeck up top in a game like todays, let him take the battering from QPR's centre backs and had Rooney flitting about in all that space in front of their defence doing shit loads of damage.

We have a Rooney in RVP, but we dont have a Wellbeck.

RVP is way better than Rooney though. But yeah your point is correct we need a Wellbeck and a Hernandez and maybe even a Berbatov.

General Mirth wrote:

Vantastic wrote:

I don't think he plays well when the team is under the cosh or playing badly.

WHAT?

Ie Running the channels, making himself available for pass and most importantly holding up the ball to help relieve pressure.

That constitute playing well as a forward when your team isn't playing well.

Guys I don't want to be controversial here, but I think Rooney's overall game is better but Robin is a far superior goal scorer.

Don't be silly.

Vantastic wrote:

General Mirth wrote:

WHAT?

Ie Running the channels, making himself available for pass and most importantly holding up the ball to help relieve pressure.

That constitute playing well as a forward when your team isn't playing well.

Right, but his general play has been fine for large portions of the season when the team weren't playing well, so I don't see what you're getting at. He's in relatively poor form right now, whether we play well (aston villa) or not (today)

I don't agree with what you have to say about his balance either, if there's one physical aspect about him that is extraordinary it has got to be his sense of balance.

I get what you mean about his passing, but he's got 12 assists to his name so he is creative in one sense. Bergkamp he ain't but he's better than practically every other striker out there.

Ok let's agree to disagree.

I can't remember the last time I saw Robin carry the ball forward from deep positions for instance.

Vantastic wrote:

Guys I don't want to be controversial here, but I think Rooney's overall game is better but Robin is a far superior goal scorer.

:\

There's been a lot of games this season, especially away from home, where we've paid for RVP's inability to hold the ball up, work channels and perform the basics of being a lone centre forward. He's covered it up at times with a brilliant strike or a good finish from one of his few chances, but the overall point remains.

As a pure striker he's brilliant but flawed, and quite unconventional.

van Persie doesn't work the channels but he does drop deep into midfield with the other two wide players expected to push up. Same difference imo.

Vantastic wrote:

Ok let's agree to disagree.

I can't remember the last time I saw Robin carry the ball forward from deep positions for instance.

Will this do?

Vantastic wrote:

Ok let's agree to disagree.

I can't remember the last time I saw Robin carry the ball forward from deep positions for instance.

Being in those deep positions is a major weakness of Rooneys. He has no positional discipline. Thats why Fergie is always moving him away from the main striker position.

When Rooney was on that shit hot run a few years ago, he did fuck all outside the box. Not that it mattered either.

Timbo wrote:

There's been a lot of games this season, especially away from home, where we've paid for RVP's inability to hold the ball up, work channels and perform the basics of being a lone centre forward. He's covered it up at times with a brilliant strike or a good finish from one of his few chances, but the overall point remains.

As a pure striker he's brilliant but flawed, and quite unconventional.

Wow, couldn't have put it better.

General Mirth wrote:

When Rooney was on that shit hot run a few years ago, he did fuck all outside the box. Not that it mattered either.

But now he's a better, more rounded player because he has a proper centre forward doing his dirty work leaving him loads of space to work in. Hasn't effected his goal tally either.

Timbo wrote:

There's been a lot of games this season, especially away from home, where we've paid for RVP's inability to hold the ball up, work channels and perform the basics of being a lone centre forward. He's covered it up at times with a brilliant strike or a good finish from one of his few chances, but the overall point remains.

As a pure striker he's brilliant but flawed, and quite unconventional.

Personally I think it's the rest of the front four: Ramsey/Rosicky, Walcott and Gervinho who struggle to retain possession in the final third.

I mean, I get where you're coming from but I don't see this as an inadequacy in van Persie's game, like vantastic says. Maybe we do need a change in system like when we wanted Adebayor to partner Henry away from home but I don't think that translates to Rooney being a better player overall.

I didn't mean to say Rooney was better than RVP overall, I'm not wading in to that debate. I meant Rooney now is better than he was 2 years ago when he had that great goalscoring season, and it's because he has Wellbeck and/or Hernandez occupying defenders and doing the 'nitty gritty', giving him the space and freedom to hurt teams.

And I'm not talking about retaining possession in the final third. I'm talking about games like the Utd home game where we got pinned back and every time we hit clearances up to RVP Smalling battered him and won the ball. Same happened in the Fulham away game. Go back and there will be lots of examples like those.

We need an option up top, someone who can do the dirty work. Maybe not in every game, but it's a big weakness that we dont have it. One of the main reasons for our poor away form imo.

RVP has lost his insane form since a few weeks back. I am more surprised that it lasted as long as it did. No player is perfect, not even Robin, but when he has contributed as much as RVP this season I find it quite pointless to look for faults.

Got to laugh at the stick RVP is getting from some people.. (and no, this is not directed at EVERY single person who has had something negative to say about RVP) He's been nothing short of sensational this season and without him I dread to think where we'd be. Yeah his form has dipped and he's had a few poor games in a row but some of the comments are ridiculous.

I for one am extremely excited at the prospect of podolski and persie up front for arsenal, potential goal glut from those two next season, if we keep the player of the year that is.

Everyone knows RVP has been brilliant this season and over the season has been the best in the league.

My observation is that in certain games against certain teams he's left fighting a very lonely battle up front because he's not a very conventional pure striker and he's not suited to doing certain things. Sometimes we struggle to get the ball in to his feet because he's surrounded by giant centre backs and he's not the greatest at holding the ball up or fighting for scraps. The result is that we can get pinned back-see 2nd half of Fulham away or 1st half of Utd at home for examples.

He wasn't at fault for the "great chance" Kenny saved. That was not a sitter by any stretch of the imagination, it would've had to have been a superb finish.

But we've become quite used to superb finishing from him. Anything less is, well...less!

True, just think it's a little skewed the way people have been talking about it as if it was "make or break" for the match. If we're relying on Van Persie to slot home chances like that in general, we're failing (and looking at our recent away wins, it's probably fair to say that we ARE failing in many cases).

I was hoping to play as a second striker... I never thought I would end up as a main striker,” Van Persie told Arsenal Player. "We only tried it [at Arsenal] when Adebayor went to Manchester City [in 2009].

"The boss didn't buy anyone else because he was convinced I could do it, but I wasn't even convinced I could do it.
I had not really played there that much, and I hadn't thought about it much before
"The boss said, 'I think you can do it, give it a go and see where it ends. Play your normal game, don't go out there to score, go out there to enjoy yourself and help the team'

“I had a go and then in pre-season we had a game against Inter Milan and I scored good goal and played well, and he told me after the game, 'We will see how it goes, I am 100 per cent sure it will work'.

Then in my first five or six [league] games I didn't score, I was making assists and playing well, but I didn't score and I thought, 'I am a main striker now, I need to score' and the boss said, 'I don't mind that, as long as you play well for the team, giving assists, the goals will come'.
"When I scored my first goal I then scored seven in seven, with seven assists, so that was quite good. That was my first step to being a main striker."

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/van-persie-how-i-evolved-as-a-striker

Nice article. The main reason behind Robin's emergence as one of the world's best players is his fitness. He has been fit for the last 15 months and he has shown what he can do. Maybe the change in position also had something to do with it.

The more interesting question is, if we had a good all-out striker when Robin came back from injury last year, and we played Robin as a no.10 - would he have been as good as he is now? Obviously he wouldn't have scored as many goals with our main striker (someone like Adebayor ...but better and not a cunt) getting goals, but could he have imitated Bergkamp to any great effect?

I honestly don't know. Before these past 15 months, I always thought of Robin as a scorer of great goals rather than a great goalscorer. His skill set seemed to lend itself to more to a Dennis role. Lets hope Wilshere takes up that role when he comes back from injury.

That whole Wenger enjoy your game, help the team, an assist is as good as a goal philosophy is something that they're encouraging in Theo too, he's echoed that a few times recently in interviews.
If it eventually brings out a more prolific goal scorer in him then we'd be getting places.

Yep Dalglish should say it to his lot. Remove some of the pressure to score so the chances are easier to finish.
Maybe Wenger said it to Ade to often tho.

Just read this on twitter from an Arsenal fan lol

Gonna be hated for this but, I'd swap Torres for Van Persie every day of the week. RVP will never have a season like this again.

The problem with that reasoning is that Torres looks like he'll have a lot more seasons like this.

That has to be a joke. It's sad that anybody could be so stupid.

You'd want to be off your rocker to exchange Van Persie for Torres.
Why would somebody even suggest it?
It's a judgement that ignores each player's form over the past 12 months (and longer for Torres).
Strange.

Must've been a child.

Regardless of how they compare ability-wise, don't we, as fans, like our players? He's our captain and he's someone who understands what it means to play for the Arsenal. I wouldn't swap Robin for anyone. I want my club to do as well as possible whilst retaining the core and spirit of the club. To do what Man City have done and remove their entire squad in a few years to win a trophy...I don't see any glory in that and I don't want my club to go down that path. I take more pride in players like Robin leading us out.

Has to be the daftest thing I've ever read. We should sign him up on One More in the Tolly.
Would only trade RVP for those 50 goal boys from Spain

Any Irish lads catch Liam Brady talking about RVP on Setanta the other day? Apparently he pretty bluntly said that RVP was simply waiting to see how much we're going to offer him financially. He knows we cant give him the same as Man City but he has a figure in mind and if we meet it he'll sign, regardless of CL, new signings, etc. Is this accurate/true?

i wouldn't rule that out actually

Timbo wrote:

Any Irish lads catch Liam Brady talking about RVP on Setanta the other day? Apparently he pretty bluntly said that RVP was simply waiting to see how much we're going to offer him financially. He knows we cant give him the same as Man City but he has a figure in mind and if we meet it he'll sign, regardless of CL, new signings, etc. Is this accurate/true?

And how would Liam Brady know this.?

Doubt it's true, even if he said it.