Because they win and challenge; chicken and egg.

Look, I'm not saying to sell VanPersie (although my personal opinion is that it doesn't matter), I'm saying that the club must not allow itself to be distracted by his contract situation. The fact is, we have alot of work to do in the next three months and it's all too convenient to let the VanPersie contract cloud other key decisions.

As I said, work out what we need to be a genuine contender, get it done and then Perse leaving means nothing and in the best case scenario, he signs as a cherry on top.

Put it this way, if tomorrow we announce Kagawa, M'vila, Vertonghen and Hazard (change the names as and how you please), the prospect of losing VanPersie becomes a whole lot less worrying.

if we sign those players, the prospect of losing van persie becomes a whole lot less likely. that's why i link signings with the van persie extension. he's a gooner, he wants to win here, but if he's not convinced that he can, he'll go for the huge paycheck and titles elsewhere.

life usually isnt so black and white, but in this case, i think we have 2 options: 1) make top quality signing(s) and re-sign van persie, or 2) don't.

i agree with asa on the footballing side (podolski's not a 30 goal man, where will the goals come from?) and with qs in that going for option 2 would be final nail in the coffin of our ambition. there would be no way to argue otherwise. we can't indefinitely replace star players with inferior ones without damaging our results.

We seem to come up with goalscorers irrespective. Let's be honest here, that's what Wenger does; nobody knows how he does it, but he does. If we are going to pan him for the defence constantly, we have to give him that.

Nobody said anything about persistently replacing star players with inferior ones.

Captain you know we're not going out to make the required number of top signings to challenge for major titles, regardless of distractions over Robin's contract.

When our big players leave we do not replace them with mature players with the equivalent level of talent or quality.

Going out and making the signings to challenge for top honours? When did we last do that?

It doesn't matter when we last did it. It doesn't even matter if we do it this summer. It is what we should be doing.

But until the paradigm shifts...

We don't behave like a big club. We haven't for years and years and years. No point talking about what we would do if we did act like that, because so far there's nothing suggesting that will change any time soon.

...it doesn't matter. We'll get fourth, like we always do and we'll all enjoy it.

Until, eventually, we run out of luck.

But I'm happy for you that you're enjoyi it.

That level of consistency is never luck.

Captain wrote:

It doesn't matter when we last did it. It doesn't even matter if we do it this summer. It is what we should be doing.

I think most of us would agree on that.
The fact that we don't do it means that some of us (me!) are loathe to let the few brilliant players that we do have go.

They come, they go, result is invariably the same; what can I say, it's not a big deal for me.

Captain wrote:

That level of consistency is never luck.

We've been lucky plenty of times, and it only needs to go the other way once.

asajoseph wrote:

Captain wrote:

That level of consistency is never luck.

We've been lucky plenty of times, and it only needs to go the other way once.

It has, which is why we haven't won the league yet.

Go on, bite.

There's no contradiction between not acting like a big club, and "achieving" 4 th consistently. It just means we set our goal (or at least our actions were leading to)the level that gets 4th. As this season showed clearly, it's not a fluke and it's still a long, long way from acting (aiming or doing) as a big club.

luck was also not on our side perhaps (as GM claims; maybe 07-08 a good example), but it swings only this much. Can't cover for either what our real level is, or for what we were aiming for ( at least according to our actions).

Won't change till the paradigm shifts - I agree. Maybe one significant aspect in that regard: it was reasonable to argue last year could not be judged for the new owner's strategy. It can't be claimed now, nor is there a clarity issue regarding where we really are, and what needs to be done. We will be able to rule on what happens now without too much speculation.

Captain wrote:

They come, they go, result is invariably the same; what can I say, it's not a big deal for me.

Feel the same way. Whether Robin stays or goes, we'll find a way to get top 4 - so if we're not prepared to show some ambition and add the 4 or 5 quality players this squad needs to really compete, what does it all matter?

If the club won't learn from last summer and last season - as God awful as they both were - then what's the point mate?

No point of getting too attached when the whole thing's doomed to fail from the start.

I think it'd be a huge blow if Robin left. I think a lot of you are underplaying how much Robin leaving would affect the squad as a whole. You saw how the team reacted to Cesc and Nasri leaving. It would definitely affect our ability to attract big players as well.

I think you're just mentally preparing yourselves for his potential departure. When Henry and Cesc left, they weren't carrying us to the same extent as Robin is at the moment.

EDIT: Ricky just confirmed my suspicion.

Ron Burgundy wrote:

I think it'd be a huge blow if Robin left. I think a lot of you are underplaying how much Robin leaving would affect the squad as a whole. You saw how the team reacted to Cesc and Nasri leaving. It would definitely affect our ability to attract big players as well.

I think you're just mentally preparing yourselves for his potential departure. When Henry and Cesc left, they weren't carrying us to the same extent as Robin is at the moment.

EDIT: Ricky just confirmed my suspicion.

While this is true, it really doesn't matter though, now does it? If we're not going to sign big players this summer when it could potentially make us a title challenging side, which would probably mean RvP signing a new contract as well, when are we going to sign any big players?

My point is that it makes sense in about a hundred different ways to buy "big players" this summer, and if we're not willing to do it now, chances are we're not going to do it in any of next summer windows either.

Therefore, worrying about whether or not we'd be able to attract big players if RvP goes, doesn't really make any sense, as we'll probably not even be interested in them anyway.