@shwan Have you seen Buttner play? Your going on like he is the next Vidic or Evra because he doesn't cost much but the reality is that he had a deal agreed to join Premiership newboys Southampton that fell through due to some paperwork error or some rubbish. And according to most Southampton fans they where quite excited about him but thought he needed a bit of work. He will be a back-up at Utd - nothing more than a squad player.# This is definately not a big signing for you guys - probably on the level of us signing Benayoon on loan last season - he did well when he played but didn't play often. Arsenals Transfer activity so far is still more impressive than Utd. RVP is fantastic and any team signing him would be strengthening alot. But Kagawa would struggle to get into Arsenals first team whereas he walks straight into Utd's (not saying he is a poor player by any stretch of the word, just that Arsenal have a large choice of very good midfielders) and Powell/Buttner are not in the same league as Arsenals signings (Cazorla, Sahin, Podolski, Giroud so far..). Utd will look strong as usual - you will be there or there abouts come the end of the season. The point i was making and i think other Arsenal fans are making is that in the Transfer window we have made the signings which if any other team had signed would be seen as top, top signings.
@UIR Kagawa If you are going from the beginning of 2004 that would include Arsenals Invincibles win, since that was 2004. As for the FA Cup Final in 2005 i really couldn't care less that we played crap, at the end of the day we took home the FA Cup (as we have been reminded repeatedly over the last 7 seasons, its only winning that counts, not how well you play). Chelski then went on to grab back 2 back titles. So once again i rest my case; 2004-2006 Utd where the 3rd best team in the country.
I said start of 2004 to the end of the 2006 seasons. so August 2004 to may 2006. 2 seasons. And yes we were 3rd best and everyone called us done for, our time had passed etc etc. How very very wrong they were, we became even better, dominating the league, during the period we were the best side in europe alongside barcelona who obviously then surpassed us big time but the point I am making is everyone writes United off and everytime they are wrong, be it right away or eventually. Why?
You did say the start of 2004 to the end of 2006. But the start of 2004 is the first of January, not August. Therefor my points still stand. As for Utd being written off - it's because everyone hates you. Everyone wants Utd to fall from grace as you have been near the top for a long period. First it was ArsenalvsUtd, then after a few years out the spotlight it become UtdvsChavski, and now UtdvsCity unless the London clubs can do something this season (wouldn't write off Chavski or Arsenal just yet). So yeah it has generally been because no-one likes you, which is natural after so many years accumulating glory supporters. But on the other hand - Arsenal are written off every season. Despite being the longest consecutively serving team in the CL, with AW participating in the competition every season he has been at the club - we are still the team which is supposedly going to drop from the top 4 each year. 'tis funny how football watchers make there opinions, for Utd it's mainly hatred (although recently with your ageing squad i can understand people thinking you may drop away), but with Arsenal it's just people listening to the silly media (Liverpool, Chelsea, City, Tottenham etc.... do not have nearly the same record as Arsenal over the last 10-15 years).
@shwan The reason i asked if you had seen him play is because that is the argument you used against an Arsenal fan - asking if he had seen him play. Regardless of it being SAF who signed the player he will still be a squad player at best and not Evras long term replacement. SAf signed BEBE - doesnt make him a star does it? Just a lucky homeless guy. As for your points - 1) yes Arsenal are having to change the squad due to losing a couple of players. Onje of them is RVP and ofcourse thsi is difficult to take - but we have added 2 international strikers with different qualities to give us more options up front. The other is Song, a player who was only rated by Arsenal fans last season when we were told by rival fans how Scott Parker was far superior.... Dunno why now everyone thinks he is amazing..... And AW chose to get rid of him for being a lazy ****. 2) RVP is better than both the strikers we have brought in. But we have brought in the French top goal scorer who helped drag his team to the title and a German International who bagged 18 goals last season for a relegation team and has one of the best International scoring records around. They are hardly poor signings. Yes they may struggle to get game time at Utd who now have Rooney and RVP who would be ahead in the pecking order, or at City who have spent £30m+ on each of there strikers, but compared to anything else they are perfectly good. 3) Sahin is a loan deal and depending on which sources you believe we have an option to buy. So i don't see your point about nothing for the future - if you signed Messi on a one year loan deal i'm sure you'd still think it was a good signing. So yeah.... Sahin is a fantastic signing either way. 4) Cazorla is better than Kagawa, as is Sahin and Wilshere. Kagawa is Rosicky level - which is still very good. Regardless of Kagawa being younger Cazorla is the better signing. (i d rate Kgawa highly btw and it'll be interesting if he aloen can bare the burden of creativity in the Utd team). 5) yes we have lost 2 key players from last season. RVP is dificult to replace but we have attempted to do this by signing two very good international strikers and by adding to our creativity in midfield with Cazorla and Sahin to create more chances for our strikers. This will compensate for RVP's goals and also add many more dimensions to our squad. Song we are still hoping will be directly replaced by M'villa or someone similar in which case we will be perfectly fine without him (Mv'illa is defo leaving his club and he has said he will only go to a CL cub). So i don't think your points show Utd's signings to be better.
Well, in Mourinho's first season, 2004/05, we started very well and were already 5 points ahead of Chelsea's assembled plastic team by mid-October. Then the fateful game at Old Trafford came along and we got screwed over by Mike Riley (a tradition whenever we visit OT) after Rooney's obvious dive and the rest is history. Our unbeaten record was broken and that was quite unsettling for the next few fixtures as we Chelsea overtook us and had created a 5 point gap in their favour within 4 or 5 weeks. We were certainly better than Man Utd in that period, I recall that many said that SAF's time was up. Between 2007 til Man City's Arab money, United were almost guaranteed the title. Arsenal took up a huge burden with the new stadium restricting the funding for the team and Chelsea sort of self-destructed themselves with sacking Mourinho. Liverpool was just Liverpool, except 2009 they never really challenged.
@UIR Kagawa - you actually said "remember Utd 2004-2006" that doesn't specifiy years or seasons, but 2004-2006 to me is showing 3 years, 2004, 2005 and 2006. So my points all still stand! Although granted its silly arguing over the meaning of one word when clearly we agree on Utd's position during those years! And yes - most of the time Utd are written off because of Jealousy - just like why Tottenham and Chavski fans used to write off Arsenal all the time. The other side of the hatred is just because you have so many ****s for fans you are the SCUM after all
RVP moved to man utd to work with the most successful club and manager since the premier league started and to play under a manager that knows how to deliver success regardless of what changes happen at the club. If you think RVP is going to bat an eyelid or have any doubts just because you signed two unproven strikers, a talented spanish guy and an injury prone turkish player on loan then you must be a deluded wee soul. Just accept that your club couldn't offer RVP what he wanted, you couldn't match his ambitions and now as a club you have to forget about RVP, as he decided Man Utd offered him the best chance of real success.
@Boss Did you bother to read my initial post? And do you have any knowledge whatsoever of RVP before he joined Utd? I doubt it. He was an Arsenal fan. Comming to Arsenal was his dream. Just last year he came out with a ton of stuff about how he wouldn't leave us as winning trophies with another club would be meaningless. He wants to take Arsenal back to our glory days etc etc.... He was literally mr Arsenal/Wenger Fanboy. He was the player who made himself out to be loyal to the max, he acted like he was very dissapointed with Fabregas etc..... He then basically came out and said the only reason he wasn't signing was because Arsenal were not going to sign in good enough players to compete. We have signed Podolski, Giroud, Cazorla, Sahin and are still in the market for more players. So we actually could offer RVP everything that he publicaly said he wanted. He said money wasn o issue whatsoever, all he wanted was top signings. We got the signings he wanted and he bailed for 250k a week.# What he wanted was lots of cash. Nothing more, nothing less. He was a scummy **** to not just say that. That was the point of this thread. It's nothing to do with working with a top Manager as he already had that with AW (a guy who last year he was saying has been like a father figure lol). He went to you guys for cash. simples.
Listen, i'm not a utd fan and yes of course I had knowledge of RVP before he joined Utd (not that it makes any difference)...I also had knowledge of Kuyt and Ruud van Nistelrooy before they moved to this league, again it makes zero difference to any aspect of these players. Why do you have this big thing about RVP being an arsenal fan? Defoe is an arsenal fan, his hero growing up was Ian Wright, so he should have told us to f off if he was thinking like a football fan. When a person goes from being a normal fan to an actual footballer, their mentality changes, they see football for what it is, a career, to achieve their goals and this means you go from being a fan of a certain club, to an individual footballer that views clubs from what they can provide you to match your goals. Of course now and then you will get people that are exception to this rule, like alan shearer or matt le tissier and abroad you may see players like Maldini spend his career playing for the club he supported yet these are exceptions. I know how as a fan you're feeling but he signed for Man Utd because he wants to end his career with trophies playing for the biggest club in England, that is the real reason and you should accept it. You remember when Sol Campbell done the dirty on us, screwed us over, made promise after promise about signing a new contract, we all said he left just for money and the same as what you're saying, he was a Tottenham fan, he even said he wanted to return to Spurs after his Arsenal move. He left because he wanted to win trophies, as much as it hurt at the time and who he was moving too, it was because he felt he was a top player that deserved to win trophies. Its the same with RVP, just accept it and move on.
@Boss - he left because he was a money grabbing **** who didn't want to stand by his own words. My point is more than he should have just said that he was leaving for money. Don't come out with loads fo crappy reasons to try and save face - just say it - "im leaving because the SCUM will pay me 250k which is twice what Arsenal can afford to pay me"
afcftw. if you feel that way then it doesn't matter what anyone says, does it? so that's fine, be consistent with your views. However, remember you're viewing this as a hurt bitter fan, and when someone is bitter they don't see the actual truth.
If you have read through all of RVP's statements and comments during his time at Arsenal (in particular last years i love Arsenal statement and his statement about not re-signing this year) then you'd understand why Arsenal fans are irritated with it. The fact is that we did everything as a club which RVP was asking for to remain and yet he is still gone. He was making excuses for why he wanted to leave when in reality money talks. Yes he may have more chance of a trophy at the moment with Utd but he himself said last year that if he left and joined another club the trophies wouldn't mean anything, it was only worth winning trophies if he stayed with Arsenal and worked for them. So naturaly when a year later he leaves it is clear that money was a big influence here. What the point of this article was, was to highlight the things RVP has said and then acted in the total opposite way. That's not looking at the saga as a bitter fan but rather using logical analysis. The things RVP has said are in writing and the way he has acted goes against everything he said he stood for as a footballer. He had decided to leave already and i wish he had just came out and said that rather than trying to make out the club where not doing enough when quite clearly we are finally moving in the right direction. All we need as club at the moment are for key players not to leave (which RVP didn't like while he was here) yet he has helped to continue this trend. He went against everything he had said to us as fans. This is the issue i have, not that he has moved on.
I dont understand the hate for RVP really. Sure he left for your once great rivals but clubs have done a whole lot worse to Arsenal than RVP signing for United. Fabregas and Barcelona for example, you all love the guy even though Barcelona stole him from under your noses and treated you as if you were **** all. Showed no respect and unsettled a player you had made into the player he was today. Cant say Cesc did much wrong other than allow Barcelona to take the piss out of Arsenal. City basically show up and make it clear that Arsenal are **** all to them. Just somewhere to pick up players nothing more. RVP is the bad guy at the big bad man utd though
@shwan 1) I agree players departing need to be taken into consideration. That also means Utd must take into consideration the ageing Giggs/Scholes players. I haven't said Arsenal haven't lost quality, i just think we have had overall better transfer movement. 2) Just a few examples of players who have moved from the French leagues to top teams: Eden Hazard, Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri, Thierry Henry... the list goes on and on. So i don't think you can use the quality of the league as a way of saying a player will not be good enough. And your right it's quality that matters and Giroud last season showed he had quality, but ofcourse only time will tell how well he does. And podolski is an International for one of the best International teams in the world, he is part of the first team and has a fantastic International goal scoring record, as well as being hard working and consistent he scored 18 goals for a relegation battle team in a strong German League last season. We are not boasting because we are signing International players, but because of the quality of these International players. 3) If we have a clause to buy Sahin then he will be bought if he performs to a high enough standard. Real are letting him go on loan because he won't get enough first team football and he wants to go to Arsenal, Arsenal are the ones who want the cluase rather than Real. If he is good enough he will be bought. If you look at how much Arsenal have spent on players over the last couple of seasons i see no reason why we wouldn't pay a reasonable sum for Sahin if he is good enough. If he is a flop of course we won't buy him... what kind of logic is that? 4) Kagawa is younger than Rosicky, but that has nothing to do with his current ability. Currently Rosicky and Kagwa are of a similar level in my opinion. Rosicky is very mobile and direct so not sure how you see that as Kagawas advantage. Also Sahin did not flop at Real. They have a midfield packed with quality (Khedira, Ozil, Alonso, Di Maria etc... Kaka finds it hard to get game time!), and it is only because of a lack of game time that he wants to go elsewhere. He was the player of the season in the German league prior to that in the same team you have signed Kagawa from. Wilshere was excellent in his first season in the first team and he was 18, looking like the top midfielder in a game against Barcelona. He is clearly in the same class as Kagawa and i think most people would rate Wilshere higher. The fact is Arsenal have a midfield packed with creativity, skill and passing ability and Kagawa wouldn't make the first team, but at Utd where you lack creativity he walks into the team. He is a very good player but means alot more to you than he would to us. 5) I completely agree with you. RVP would create goals as well as score them. He has very good skills on the ball, good passing and an excellent understanding of the game. And your right, our two strikers do not make up for that on there own. They do add different elements to our attack and give us different options to what we have had before, but like you say, only one of them can play in the position at once. That is why, like i said previously, we have added some fantastic creative talent to the team, players who can add goals and more opportunities from midfield to help balance out the previous imbalance we had in the squad of relying on one player for goals. This is a good thing for Arsenal and our summer transfer activity has more than made up for the loss of RVP. You are takign too narrow a view on replacing him, you need to look at the bigger picture rather than just, one player in for one player out.
@UIR - Kagawa RVP was a player who tried to make out he was a massive fan and desperate to make Arsenal succeed. He was a player everyone had faith in not to just leave like our other top players but he followed the trend. If he had been more open about why he was leaving and not been a dick about it people wouldn't have been as bitter. People don't hate Fabregas because we understood where he was comming from. He wasn't leaving for money or because he didn't want to be at Arsenal etc... He wanted to go back to his boyhood club. We all knew it would happen for a while and he handled the whole saga very well, he was good to the fans and the club. He still supports the club and it wouldn't suprise me if some day we activate our buy-back clause at a later stage in his career. The hatred in that saga is aimed at Barcelona for the disgraceful way they conducted themselves. City are ****s, everyone knows it. If they come in and throw enough money at you it's hard to say no. Nasri we got a massive amount of money for a player who is quality but had only shown it for 6 months of his time with us. Would have liked to keep him but he's a **** as well so not too bothered. Clichy we had been complaining about for ages, Ade had to go and we got good money for Toure (although he is the one of the 4 players i would have liked to see stay at the club).
Kagawa ****s of rosisky. What the actual **** are you doing comparing a genuinely class player with erm.... whatever rosisky happens to be. Im offended. Anyway good luck with the season, reckon you will finish 3rd as stated above Chelsea, spurs, liverpool or newcastle.
