Must read: Usmanov letter - full text.

The money Arsenal have available, which is based on the money Arsenal earns, is nowhere near that of Manchester City which is based on the money they earn, plus the money their owner is prepared to give them. We cannot afford to pay a player, even one that is top scorer of the league, what Manchester City would pay him.

If he comes to the end of his contract, we cannot make him take our offer and not Manchester City's.

In RVP's case, he has refused to sign a new contract for 2 years.

3 years ago, we did not offer him a new contract because he was a useless crock.

It really has nothing to do with infrastructre. Manchester City's money does not come from their infrastructure, but out of the pocket of their owner. Our pay scales are really very high when you look at the premier league clubs that operate using only their infrastructure.

 

I would agree entirely if it was just Man City but clubs far smaller than us are spending big money to keep players (far more than us) we always here the same excuse of not being able to compete financially but that simply isn't true considering the revenue we generate. In terms of net Spend we are among the lowest if not the lowest in the league behind teams like Stoke and Aston Villa, we can compete with these teams financially, the board are just using excuses to fill their own pockets. Take for example the fact that they keep 40Million every year in case they don't get into the champions league and have been doing so for the past few seasons, so what it happening to all this money because it obviously is not being invested into our squad if we have to sell players just to make a few signings.

 

Who one the board are actually filling their pockets ?

 

All of them, they are more concerned about strengthening their share values rather than spending the money strengthening the squad.

 

I think it's fair to say that the only board member with any shares is Stan Kroenke.

 

Not many of the smaller clubs have players that attract the interest of Manchester City. The real problem is that, despite what our own fans think of them, our players are (by definition) good enough to play in a "top 4" side.

The numbers that I have seen don't seem to indicate that there are pots of money lying around for Wenger to spend. The increase in wages over the last 2 years has sucked up most of the spare cash.

 

Rant of the year. That's almost on a par with some of HIAG's outbursts.

 

According to that idiot, only someone who lives within a square mile of the stadium should support arsenal, if that was the case the club would cease to exist and would be financially ruined.

 

I wouldn't worry about him mate he's proved he's a gobshite and how little knowledge he really has of Arsenal

 

It's been said before, but if it were left to supporters from 'da manor' who don't even bother to turn up to games, then Arsenal would be playing in front of an empty stadium each week.

 

I think you are a bit naive here. Why is it so blatantly obvious - because RVP says so? Cmon, Robin has been with Arsenal for 8 years. He knows how the club operates, Gazidis could not possibly tell him anything that could make him change his mind. As far as I understand RVP has decided to leave long ago, probably last winter and now he tries to orchestrate a quick move. His statement serves only one purpose - to cut all links with the club and make his staying here untenable without resorting to a written transfer request, which would cost him big money. There is nothing personal, strictly business. It is a waiting game now. I think ManCity will not necessary make their move first, because they might have already agreed terms and feel confindent, but do not want to pay big fee. But I think the more they wait the more nervous RVP may gets because there is no queue for his services at the moment. Another year with Arsenal on 80K would be a disaster to him, he needs a last big contract before he is 29 let alone 30. I would not be much surprised actually if Arsenal would up the ante and offer him something like 170K. But they need to offload a lot of players to be able to do so methinks. I I have always had a simple solution - sell Diaby and add his salary to RVP money, but Wenger does not want to listen to me. )) And anyway, it may not be enough if ManCity are ready to pay £220K.
there is another great solution which will make anyone happy - since RVP says it is not about the money (ha-ha-ha) ManCity could pay him a respectable £120 but raise the transfer fee to £37 ml, it will be the same money for them in the end - and Arsenal would sell him tomorrow, with no bad feelings, and we all would say well done.

 

Apparently Arsenal have offered RVP a Hundred and thirty thousand per week on a three year deal. But the sticking point is about the length of contract. If someone came in with a Thirty seven million offer, we should bite their ****ing hand off, but to be honest, we'd still be losing our best player.

My opinion is that we should keep him and make him see out his contract. At Thirty and with a sketchy injury record, he won't be worth more than around ten - fifteen mill next year anyway.

 

I keep on hearing the rumour that the length of contract is the problem.He wants 4 years but because of his past injury record we've only offered a 3 year deal

 

Maybe you should be a bit more realistic, how many clubs would actually want to buy diaby with his injury record? I would be surprised if there were any. And you can't just release players either as they have a legally binding contract, to do that you would have to pay him the full remainder of the contract, and that would then not fit with your theory of saving money. Even if we negotiate with diaby to release him from his contract it would still cost us a lot of money to pay him of. I actually really like diaby and think, or maybe hope that his injuries will be a thing of the past now he has had a full recovery and a proper pre season, maybe I'm just being optimistic.

Part of me kind of agrees with wengers stance on the length of contract, if RVP is given a 4 year contract, that will mean he will be at the club for a further 5 years, including the 1 year from his current contract. Unfortunately I do not think RVP will be worth 170k a week in 4- 5 years time, and will probably be a bit part player by that time taking up a lot of wages and preventing us from signing and paying good wages to younger players. You can see the logic in why wenger is only offering him a 3 year deal. In 3 years time wenger will have calculated that RVP will not be that important to the team and will be a waste of 130 - 170k a week, the guy is just looking at it from a sporting and financial sense, and whether you agree with it or not, you can at least see why he is only wanting to offer a 3 year deal.

 

I think any new contract would start from now and not when the current one runs out

 

I was joking about Diaby. Of course you are right. RVP is in a strange position, because at his age and with his injury/ performance record he has virtually prized himself out of the market by having an extraordinary season and making himself irreplaceable for Arsenal. But that is what it is for RVP - an extraordinary season. For big guys like Ronaldo of Messi it would count as an ordinary one, hence their price. RVP's evaluation, on the other hand, is rather tricky and makes any big bids for him quite risky. For anyone apart from ManCity, of course. Now when i think about it, I think you are correct about 170K as well. In any case it does not look healthy when a club has one player sitting on super wages who the rest of the team totally depend on. At least with Podolski and Giroud we can put their eggs in different baskets ))

 

It will be interesting to see if we keep RVP and he gets injured for a large part of the season, cant imagine many clubs being that willing to give him a large contract even if they are getting him for free. This could really backfire on the guy if he burns his bridges with us.

 

RVP is nearly thirty, he and his agent are clearly interested in a lucrative new deal. It's quite possible that another club might offer him more than Arsenal, but I don't think anyone like Barca, Madrid are going to come in for him. I think that RVP knows deep down that he'll find it hard to find another club like Arsenal, even if we're not winning trophies at the moment.

 

Enigma, any time you are ready to call me an idiot to my face ... just tell me.

Piskie - when you are feeling brave enough to chat to me to my face let me know.

GoonerC - I am going to the first game of the season, so name the fukkin spot you prick - and you better not pussy out you chief.

All 3 of you can suck my balls ! your board is DEAD. Clowns.

 

You think because you are mods you are special, I couldn't give a flying fuk what you think as I have said on numerous occasions. You can run off your mouth on the internet, excellent. Let me see you do it to my face, fassyholes.