RVP has only managed over 30 appearances a season TWICE in his whole career including international appearances, which is frankly terrible. Thats starts though, things go up, but not dramatically when you include sub appearances.
He played 50 games for Arsenal/Holland one year, 32 another year, then 24/21/20/14 in other years. He's perenially injured, but the problem with that is, form, someone who can play 40 games most years is simply more reliable, if Chamakh never receives a real injury while at Arsenal, then more often than not the few times RVP is fit, we'll be dropping an inform player to play an out of form one, even worse, when RVP gets injured again you put back in a player whose now out of form.......... you don't win titles doing that, as has been shown.
Likewise 4-5-1 is still our undoing, we don't have a single out and out winger at the club, Wenger today with two embarassing admissions that show he's lost it.
"Walcott very close to striker role" and generally saying stuff about how he might become the new Henry....... he has, since the day he was born, been utterly incapable as a winger, he's been a striker since LONG before we bought him, he has no other use but being a striker, and Wenger, what 4 years after we got him is JUST starting to realise this? Thats a HUGE problem for me, the fact he can't cross, pass, is very bad at going past people, and normally quite bad at running with the ball(generally more than a few touches before a shot and he'll have got the ball caught in his feet, trod on it or just lost track of where it is.
Likewise he's going on about being surprised at how good Wilshire is???? If you watched last years preseason games and how he completely dominated, played the same way for Bolton, played the same way preseason this year, and frankly has played the same way in the league, he HASN'T improved dramatically in the past 3 months, he's been at maybe 2% off this level since 18 months ago, how is Wenger surprised, I mean, really?
As for keeping RVP and buying someone else, when you start holding on to 80k a week players for the sake of it, just incase they have a good run, you end up with 10 people on 50-100k a week who barely ever play and will never have a real effect on a title run, you're talking about 20-30mil a year on players who aren't playing. We're profitable because, don't forget we charge extortionate ticket fee's compared to pretty much the entire league, and have a huge stadium, we charge more than Utd do, more than Chelsea do, we've got a HUGE wage bill already. Vela's constantly fit yet almost never gets played, if we played a 4-4-2 he could play most games. LIkewise Theo, as a winger its all a joke to be honest.
I've LOVE to keep RVP, and frankly I reckon half out "sicknote" players could be fixed by a change in training style/medical team/management choices but right now he takes more out in wages than he provides in goals/game winning performances. Someone else on 80k a week who can play 40games a year consistantly could help us win a title, RVP in his current fitness levels, can't. I mean, if we didn't have RVP for the past 5 years in only one year has he had a decent effect on the team(50 game year) where we won nothing, we'd have saved 15mil in wages, and had 80k spare on the wage bill, we could have signed VDV for essentially free.
Fabregas has missed almost a season across the last 3 with hamstring problems, 2-0 up, against City, who showed no real threat, 1 man down with plenty of quality on the bench and Fabregas was played up till around the 80th minute IIRC, then played in another full tough game straight after, and he took a LOT of big tackles against City aswell. Anyone with half a brain would have given him a break and bought on someone in the 60th minute or so. West Ham are way way better than their position shows but playing him in a long tough City game taking lots of hits, than a full game against a tough midfield tackling West Ham, asking for trouble.
We don't rest players, we don't make subs when the games over to protect those with injuries, we rush people back, and pay zero attention to upcoming schedual. Would RVP have done his ankle for Holland if we hadn't played him in every minute of a completely walk over win right before the international break, who knows, a smart man knowing he was going to be picked for Holland would have given him a rest and used someone like Vela.
