We don´t necessarily need a £25m player to replace RVP. One thing we DO know is that ALL Arsene Wenger teams are well capable of scoring goals. We have lost bigger players than RVP and kept scoring despite NEVER splashing anywhere near £25m on a replacement.

I was all for the sale of Nasri since he didn´t want to stay, and I want us to sell RVP if in the same situation. We should have kept Cesc though.

Enough money and RVP will sign I reckon.

@Lagos of course wages matter, to ignore them is to over-simplify …

The whole point of player retention on increased contracts is to avoid the expense of equivalent signings in the open market.

It's probable (you point it out yourself) that what we can get for Van Persie with a year left on his contract is a large chunk less than what we would have to pay to sign a comparable player from another club, who would also demand a high weekly, probably close to what we've offered Van Persie.

By that reasoning alone—quite apart from negating his transfer value entirely by holding him to his contract—we might as well pump a few extra quid into retaining the guy.

Well thats not really relevant Burnsy as there is absolutely no possibility that Wenger will pay for a player of comparable value to what RvP is worth now.
Wenger simply will not spend thats all there is to it, he'll do like he did with Fabregas and Nasri, bury his head in the sand, until the Tache pulls the rug from under him.
As Arthur C Clarke said: You can prepare for the future or get clobbered by it, the future will happen anyway.

Well, sonny, I don't like the purposes of your discussion 😃

There's really no sense in arbitrarily hiving off transfer spending from wages spending, and from what we know Arsenal doesn't do this either—they dispose of a chunk of their 'transfer budget' retaining players on improved contracts, just as I suggest.

IMO Van Persie would definitely sign if we closed the pecuniary gap between us and our rivals, but that's just a gut feeling.

Edit: never mind, actually read your post the second time through and realised I misconstrued you.

@[deleted] Well, if that's the case, we stockpile cash and wait for the inevitable fall of his regime, because we won't win anything if our squad gets worse from here.

I think both lines of argument are reasonable, not too fussed either way.

Glad I've cleared it up for you all.

😆 Don't get cheeky mate, I conquered a whole nation in a yacht!

Timbo wrote:

I want to see us have a good team and a good season, so I'm mainly concerned with RVP still being here next year, him signing an extension is secondary.

we'd have a good team if we sold and replaced van persie, for this season and the ones after. star players get replaced all the time, it's the way of the world. but if we let van persie go for free, we would not have a good team in 2 yrs, as our team will be a 25m signing short.

and if we do that every time when a star player won't re-sign (25m x however many players), then we won't be able to maintain our quality level and will slide down the league.

Burnwinter wrote:

@[deleted] Well, if that's the case, we stockpile cash and wait for the inevitable fall of his regime, because we won't win anything if our squad gets worse from here.

Of course we won't win anything and he's been letting out squad get worse since 2006.

As I said, just keep stockpiling. Once "the prize" is out of our grasp (as by your ineffable logic, it will be) he'll be jettisoned.

RVP staying and not signing a contract seems hugely unlikely to me, given the huge personal risk he'd be taking. A 6 month injury, or worse still a total loss of form, and his chances of landing a big contract even up Arsenal would disappear.

Burnwinter wrote:

As I said, just keep stockpiling. Once "the prize" is out of our grasp (as by your ineffable logic, it will be) he'll be jettisoned.

Ineffable eh?

He's terrified Robin might join Real.

next your gonna get torres asking gerrard to stay loyal to pool

i wasnt being serious lagos, chill.

Ox on RvP
http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/152198.html

"It's clear how important he has been for us with the goals he's scored, he is one of the best strikers in the world," Oxlade-Chamberlain told the Sun.

"He's a massive part of the dressing room, helping all of us and speaking to the manager about what we're feeling, what we want and what we can do better. He even does the little things like arranging get-togethers with players' wives and barbecues and fun days and golf days."

Players really look up to him, finally got a worthy captain... If he chooses to leave then there's not much you can but if its another case of the board being tight, I'd be pissed.