I hope not! If he hasn´t signed at the latest a week after the Euros I hope we sell him. As with Nasri, we can´t afford to have him run his contract down.

if i were van persie, i'd be saying "show me the signings... help me help you"

I imagine it will be something like that.

He´d want to see some Kwon too though!

I think people overvalue the importance of trophies in most players' eyes. That's not to say they view them as unimportant but just being at a top club is worth almost as much to many of them, let alone one where they're being celebrated like van Persie is. Ultimately that's where their reputation stems from. Inter won nothing for almost two decades but kept a lot of top players (Javier Zanetti, anyone?) because they paid them what they were worth. I feel that if we offer Robin what he's worth and don't fuck up completely he'll sign. We'll see soon enough, though.

Humble Rex wrote:

I hope not! If he hasn´t signed at the latest a week after the Euros I hope we sell him. As with Nasri, we can´t afford to have him run his contract down.

We'll receive nowhere near the amount that we commanded for Nasri. It'll be far more valuable keeping him for another season in my eyes, and i believe we will...for him to be injured during the last four months of 12/13.

Arsenal

Tuesday February 21,2012
By Matt Law
Have your say(0)
ARSENAL board members will discuss the option of playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship over captain Robin van Persie’s future when they meet this week.
But owner Stan Kroenke and chief executive Ivan Gazidis have been challenged to “show us the money” by the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust, who forecast the club have £50million to spend on transfers and new contracts.
Arsenal’s monthly board meeting is due to take place on Thursday and, as usual, Kroenke will fly into London to attend, along with Gazidis and manager Arsene Wenger.
Both Wenger and Gazidis have come in for criticism as Arsenal face up to a seventh successive season without a trophy.
Central to Arsenal’s hopes of trying to challenge Manchester City and United is the future of top scorer Van Persie, whose contract is due to expire in 2013.
One option that has been mooted in the boardroom and will be discussed again is to hold off throwing cash at Van Persie and tell the striker’s representatives that all bids for him in the summer will be rejected.
The players have to look in the mirror, be honest and ask questions of themselves
Emmanuel Petit
Arsenal do not realistically expect to be offered more than £20m for a player with one year remaining on his contract and who will turn 30 in August 2013.
And there is still a hope inside the Emirates that Van Persie may be convinced to sign a new deal without shattering the wage structure if he is made aware he would be effectively forced to see out the remaining 12 months of his contract before being able to leave.
Arsenal sold Samir Nasri to Manchester City for about £25m last summer after the Frenchman refused to extend his contract that had only one year left to run. But Van Persie’s situation is being viewed differently because of his age and importance to the club.

Link to actual story.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/303453/Robin-Van-Persie-can-t-hold-gun-to-our-heads

After last summer you'd have to expect any such strategy to misfire, adversely affect the morale of the squad and the decisions of other players, and cruel other transfer prospects, so I hope it's false.

Journos have gone into overdrive with Arsenal stories in past few days. They suddenly know who we are selling, who we are keeping, what the new philosophy is, what our salary spend will be. Fuck them all. I'd sooner believe something written by Biggus.

Klaus wrote:

I think people overvalue the importance of trophies in most players' eyes. That's not to say they view them as unimportant but just being at a top club is worth almost as much to many of them, let alone one where they're being celebrated like van Persie is. Ultimately that's where their reputation stems from. Inter won nothing for almost two decades but kept a lot of top players (Javier Zanetti, anyone?) because they paid them what they were worth. I feel that if we offer Robin what he's worth and don't fuck up completely he'll sign. We'll see soon enough, though.

On the contrary Klaus, I think you and the other apologists greatly underestimate the importance of trophies and medals to players, especially those who have already made their fortunes and are wondering what they will take from the game in their last few years and what they will be remembered for.
Players have only two motivations- money and medals for some and medals and money for others.

RvP has made his money now he needs to leave in order to get some honours.

I've always believed that it's not uniquely about money with Robin, it's about being in the best possible Arsenal team, playing with quality players around him and winning titles with Arsenal.

Reading that Express article has made me quite angry on his behalf.
He's been one of the only people associated with this whole sorry mess who's worth what we pay him and much more and yet those who employ him, the people who have been mismanaging the squad and allowing this farce go on, the ones who care nothing about winning, they are now talking about hard balling him.

If Wenger allows that to go on then he needs to examine his own conscience.

In saying that I'm imagining that Robin's demands are reasonable and not Nasri level greedy.
However my belief is also that those in charge will be anything but reasonable on this.

Just hope the management don't underestimate the impact robins departure would have on the fans

noones on six figures a week, yet our wage bill is relatively large. too many crap players soaking up good wages. playing hard ball with rvp in light of this would rank among the dumbest things the board has done

Of course the other school of thought is that he owes us, Wenger stuck by him all those years he suffered injury after injury.
Well he's certainy paid us back this season, it would be nice if he decided to give us another, but I wouldn't blame him if he moved on.

Playing hardball can also impact negatively on his performance. Even with RVP having his most productive spell with us in front of goal over the last 2 seasons, we have still been limping towards 4th place finishes. We have been very dependent on him to carry us over the line and while I believe he loves Arsenal, if the club's stance towards him leaves him unsatisfied, that could potentially have a detrimental effect on his game, which would not bode well for us. Also the potential is there for him to sign a pre-contract next January. The other factor is that he has obviously had his injury problems in the past. Fortunately for us, he has survived the season so far, but he may be unwilling to push himself as much physically next season if he thinks it might lead to injury scuppering his chance to strike the most favourable deal as a free agent.

He should retire from international football, he could see the most productive years of his career ahead.

Biggus wrote:

Of course the other school of thought is that he owes us, Wenger stuck by him all those years he suffered injury after injury.
Well he's certainy paid us back this season, it would be nice if he decided to give us another, but I wouldn't blame him if he moved on.

They didn't do it out of charity though did they?
You could suggest they did it because they recognized he was quality that they could not sell for big money that he's worth because of his injuries, and it also gave them a reason not to spend heavily on another attacking player.
As usual the decision was more finance than football oriented.
They needed to get a great season out of him to increase his value and their profit.

Worthwhile moderate dissenting view from Goonerboy (linked from Arseblog), comparing Van Persie's situation with Henry's at the time he signed his last Arsenal contract.

http://goonerboy.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/should-robin-van-persie-get-new.html

Arsenal had therefore paid Henry about £1 million per goal during his final season, and they had lost out on maybe £30 million in transfer fees.