Arsenal: Picking Up the Pieces After Robin van Persie's Departure

As yet another of Arsenal's most talismanic players departs for supposedly greener pastures, fans of the North London club around the world are today faced with a somewhat hollow feeling that's become all too familiar during recent summer transfer windows.

Last year it was the beloved Cesc Fabregas and the not-so-beloved Samir Nasri who led the exodus, to Barcelona and Manchester City respectively. This year of course it's Dutch goal-scoring sensation Robin van Persie who has departed the club and gone to play in the colors of Manchester United.

Losing van Persie who at times almost single-handedly kept the Gunners afloat with his 35 goals last season, to one of Arsenal's direct rivals is a bitter, bitter pill to swallow.

The club hierarchy at Arsenal will of course claim they had no choice in the matter.

After all, van Persie is 29 and with one year left on his contract, meaning he could walk for nothing at the end of this season. And certainly it could be argued that 24 million pounds for an injury-prone striker who is nearly 30 and has only one truly notable season under his belt is a tidy parcel of business for Arsenal.

But Arsenal's continued success at running itself based on a self-sustaining model offers little comfort to the club's fans who've now seen the Gunner's trophy drought stretched to seven years. Meanwhile the gap has widened between Arsenal and monied clubs like City and Chelsea, Tottenham have emerged as title contenders, and Manchester United have just prized away their best player, something that would have seemed inconceivable five years ago.

Feelings today must surely be mixed. Obviously, the situation does not seem so dire as it did one year ago when Arsene Wenger let Fabregas and Nasri go, claiming the club would do just fine without them. Then it took an 8-2 thrashing by Manchester United to force the manager to dip into the transfer market.


This year at least the seemingly inevitable loss of Arsenal's best player was tempered by the addition of some proven attacking talent to the club: the German striker Lukas Podolski, the French forward Olivier Giroud, and Spanish attacking midfielder Santi Cazorla have all been acquired this summer.

There are also rumors still circulating that the Gunners will take Nuri Sahin on loan from Real Madrid and buy Fernando Llorente from Bilbao.

Even with van Persie gone, it's not difficult to look at the Arsenal squad that's currently taking shape with at least some cautious optimism. Obviously there are few players in the world one could replace Robin van Persie with.

But in his acquisition of Podolski, Giroud, and Cazorla, Wenger has at least given us some indication of where the goals that last season came from van Persie might come from in the upcoming campaign.

Still at the moment, it all amounts to a spoon-full of sugar in a jar of bitter medicine.

Arsenal fans must wonder why it was that their beloved captain Robin van Persie couldn't look on Wenger's new acquisitions with the same sense of hopefulness that they did. Was there never a moment when the prolific Dutch frontman stopped and thought "you know maybe this work?"

At the same time they are faced with the reality that the club hierarchy, rather than doing everything possible to bring a title to the trophy-starved Emirates by holding onto their best player, seemingly prefers to cover its financial bases by selling him to a direct rival.

Netherlands Announce Euro 2012 Squad

With friendly losses mounting and recriminations already beginning to fly, the Netherlands named their 23 man squad for Euro 2012 on Saturday.

The ever-formidable trio of Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie, and Dirk Kuyt will lead the attack with Rafael van der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder providing fire support. Meanwhile Mark von Bommel and Nigel DeJong will set up their usual midfield karate dojo.

Everton's Johnny Heitinga leads the defensive lineup along with Malaga's Joris Mathijsen, Ajax's Gregory van der Wiel, and Stuttgart's Khalid "The Cannibal" Boulahrouze. Not sure why he's called "The Cannibal," but assume it's because he looks like Richard Kiel's "Jaws" character from those '70s Roger Moore Bond films.

A trio of goalkeepers has been selected that along with regular starter Martin Stekelenberg of Roma, includes Newcastle's Tim Krul and Michel Vorm from Swansee.

In addition to other familiar standby supporting players such as the formidable Schalke striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Barcelona midfielder Ibrahim Afellay, and PSV defender Wilfred Bouma there are a number of less familiar faces in this summer's team.

FC Twente striker Luuk de Jong has been included in the attack as has Heerenveen's Luciano Narsingh. De Jong provided a crucial goal for the Oranje in qualifying against Finland last fall. The striker also notched up 25 goals on the season for Twente, making him the club's top scorer.

Feared throughout the Eredivisie for his speed and dribbling skills, Narsingh made his international debut in last week's friendly loss to Bayern Munich, during which he scored one of the Netherlands' two goals in that 3-2 defeat.

Midfielders hoping to somehow elbow their way into the lineup ahead of the usual crop of coveted maestros, include Stijn Schaars and Kevin Strootman. Schaars is an attacking midfielder who currently plies his trade at Sporting Lisbon. He was with the Dutch squad in South Africa two years ago but saw little to no action. Strootman is a central midfielder at PSV who has one previous international goal to his credit.

Feyenoord's Ron Vlaar and PSV's Jetro Willems are both new additions to the defense since South Africa. Vlaar has actually been in and around the team since 2005 while Willems is previously uncapped.

Saturday the Dutch suffered a surprise defeat to Bulgaria in a friendly leading up to the tournament, which begins in 12 days.

Oranje coach Bert Van Marwijk laid much of the blame on Heitinga.

"A pass like Heitinga's is just forbidden," said Van Marwijk to SBS. "You just don't do that."

Despite back-to-back warmup friendly losses against Bayern and Bulgaria, the Dutch remain among the favorites for this summer's tournament, along with Spain and Germany. Holland's only previous major trophy was a European Championship title they won in 1988 with a team that featured the likes of Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit.

One Arsenal Fan's Respectful Apologies to Arsene Wenger

Arsenal tightened their grip on third today with a comfortable away win over Wolverhampton Wanderers.

With this being their 10th win in 11 Premier League outings, many of those who were calling for Arsene Wenger's head a few weeks ago are sitting down to a healthy serving of crow just about now.

Even Piers Morgan, the most high profile Gooner this side of the Atlantic, has changed the timbre of his Arsenal-related Tweets. Morgan, who was one of the loudest voices demanding Wenger be ousted just a few weeks ago, today Tweeted:

"Brilliant win. What a crazy season. Kudos to those Gooners who kept the faith when many, like me, were losing it."

Mr. Morgan was certainly not alone in questioning his faith in the French manager. Many soccer journalists, pundits, and bloggers, myself included, were both mystified and frustrated by Wenger's seeming inability to change course or tactics.

Wenger's substitution of a rampaging Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for a misfiring Andrey Arshavin in the Gunner's 2-1 loss to Manchester United at the end of January resulted in open mutiny from the crowd at the Emirates and even Arsenal captain Robin van Persie.

A draw at Bolton the following week and a humiliating mid-February loss in the Champions League to AC Milan at the San Siro did little to sway opinions away from the view that Wenger had seemingly bolted the cockpit door and was flying the plane full throttle into the side of a mountain.

The Gunner's eight game unbeaten streak between October and December began to resemble something of a blip, book-ended on either side by a series of bad results. When Arsenal went into the North London derby already 10 points below Spurs and rapidly went down two goals, it seemed as if they were surely bound for the Europa League and Robin van Persie would likely be on his way to join Cesc Fabregas in Barcelona or Samir Nasri at Manchester City.

But then something quite unexpected happened. The Gunners fought back from their two goal deficit and went on to win the derby 5-2. In doing so they moved back into contention for a shot at Champion's League football. Wins over their closest rivals in the table, Liverpool and Newcastle soon followed and before long the Gunners had embarked on an eight match winning streak.

In the Champions' League they came within a hair's breadth of overturning their humiliating first leg loss to Milan with a 3-0 win at the Emirates. Injured player's like Bacary Sagna, Andres Santos, and Kieron Gibbs came roaring back into the lineup. Meanwhile the badly misfiring Arshavin was shipped back to the Russian Premier League on loan and the nerve wrackingly unsteady Per Mertesacker was sidelined by injury.

Suddenly Arsenal had their swagger back and Wenger's steadfast resolve to stick to his guns began to seem vindicated.

Sure, it's easy to say that the Arsenal manager's incomprehensible lack of activity in last summer's transfer market, coupled with his last minute mad-dash shopping spree went a long way towards digging the hole that Arsenal have spent half their season trying to climb out of.

But at the same time, Wenger's introduction of the revelatory Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at the turn of the year had all the effect of the big money new signings that many Arsenal fans (and players) had been clambering for.

Meanwhile to the north, Manchester City's faltering run of results which include a 1-0 loss to Arsenal, seem further vindication of Wenger's fiscally prudent yet highly resourceful style of management. With Arsenal having now won 10 out of their last 11 Premier League matches, it now seems more as if the early season and the January run of poor form were the blips.

This season's EPL title will undoubtedly go to one of the two Manchester teams. However provided things don't go catastrophically south again, Arsenal are now looking like favorites to finish third and thus automatically qualify for next year's Champions' League.

This good news is bolstered by rumors that indicate that Robin van Persie is likely to remain at Arsenal next season and that he will be joined up front by prolific goalscoring German international, Lukas Podolski.

So let me take this opportunity to apologize to Arsene Wenger. Like my fellow Gunner over at CNN, I lost the faith for a time, as many of us seemed to. And while a third place finish is a long way from the trophy many were hoping for this season, in light of this season's ups and downs and the triumphs of an at-times ragtag band of young footballers, it's something that Arsenal fans can and should be very proud of.

Were, as reports indicate, Mr. Wenger to make significant reinforcements in this summer's transfer market, Arsenal may indeed be fielding a side next season that can truly challenge for Premier League and European glory once again.