Do we really miss RVP ?

That sh1tty bastard Bradford debacle would never have gone to penalties i have no doubt.

No chance.

 

Is this a joke?

 

Any team that lets go of a player of RVP's quality without replacing him with someone of the same caliber (Giroud definitely doesn't spring to mind) is going to miss that player. It's the same thing with us and Drogba (albeit to a lesser extent because we strengthened the midfield so much).

I don't know who your main man is now, but if it isn't already him, surely Podolski at CF can't be a bad move? I rate Walcott as well. I reckon you still have enough quality to make up for RVP, just got to use your forwards correctly - i.e. never play Gervinho.

 

Well actually its quite simular.
Our midfield is also stronger this term. Carzorla and the return of Wilshere have certainly added offensive quality in midfield.


I would quite like to see Walcott up front with Podolski just behind him as a second striker.

 

Id say yes, he did all the work on his own at times, making the harder things look simple.

 

No, it's a question.

 

RVP is one of the bext strikers in world football, so yes of course we miss him, it's fair to say that even though we re-invested fairly well with a fit RVP we would be in a better position as others have said we've failed to win games that with his finishing we would have.
But for me the bigger issue is the message that selling him sent out, it said that the club failed yet again to retain a player who was key to our future plans.
I blame RVP as much as I blame the club but no club in the world can lose half a dozen star players and expect to be successful...

 

I think we missed him at the start, but we had to get new strikers bedded down in the team very quickly and change the way we play, so that is to be expected.

I don't think we would have been much better with him, right now (in fact I think we are a much better team without him), but we would have more points, because we would probably have avoided our rough patch at the start.

 

Yes, a ****ing lot. I would have let him leave on a free this summer just to keep him for another 12 months. Absolutely gutted that we never got to see him play with Cazorla.

 

I was of this opinion when he refused to sign a contract. But ultimately, there was no way the club were going to throw away £24m to let him join Utd on a free 12 months later

 

If they'd brought in Giroud, Pod, & Cazorla it would have been a risk worth taking.

With RvP as well the team could well be a good few points better off & be challenging.

 

Mancini has previously admitted he was interested in signing the 29-year-old but has only now indicated how strongly City pursued him.

The Italian said: "We wanted Van Persie because we knew he could be an important player.

"He is totally different from our other strikers. We wanted him for the Champions League and for the Premier League.

"We were very close. We were sure he was for us but this did not happen and now we can do nothing.

"We were very close three or four months before he joined United."


Interesting, isn't it? Three or four months before he joined ManU he was in advanced talks with ManCity... And that was before he pretended to have talks with Arsene and Gazidis.. Nice.

 

This is according to Mancini so therefore must be true.

 

There was a rumour that RVP had spoken with Citeh in March

 

Presumably they had also spoken to the Club then. So did Wenger know he wanted to leave and lie to the fans?

 

Yes, he should have antagonized him while he was still playing twice a week for us.

"lie to the fans"

 

Indeed, there is no question as to whether or not we miss him. It's just that the spread goals from midfield has mitigated what could have been a goal scoring disaster.

As for quantifying the impact of his absence up to now, I'd say we would be at least 7-9 points ahead of where we are now...ie genuine title contenders.

Like previous posters have said...merely looking at the glut of goals is misleading...one last minute goals that converts 1 point into 3 is worth it's weight in gold compared to the last 5 in a 6 nil victory.

The psychological impact of a 6-0 win are good but when it boils down to it....it's all about the points.

 

I agree that he's a loss, but if we're scoring the goals, then does it matter who gets them ?

 

Yes, because RVP would've added another dimension to this team, when's it ever been a bad thing to have quality depth, which is what we were screaming for when RVP was in the team?

 

Only recently we've started spreading the goals throughout the team. Those goalless draws and losses early in the season were costly.