Yes. Funnily enough it was his dream to play in La Liga for Barca or Real, then his dream evolved. He also polarised opinions amongst United fans.
Robin van Persie | 2012-14 Performances
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Yes. Funnily enough it was his dream to play in La Liga for Barca or Real, then his dream evolved. He also polarised opinions amongst United fans.
Boyhood club or not, I'm from continental Europe myself and continental Europeans have often a special fondness for Real Madrid and Barcelona and no other club can compare to that. I think I've told this story in the Messi vs Ronaldo thread - friends of mine even named their son after Messi. You often see people in Real and Barcelona shirts. On top of that, Ronaldo comes from Portugal, a country with many similarities and connections to Spain.
And although I'd feel mad if I was an Arsenal fan, at the end of the day RVP had no choice. His move to Manchester United was a career decision. Arsenal aren't going to challenge for any bigger trophies in the next few years. Considering his age, staying at Arsenal would have been career suicide.
Then you have Rooney, who is worshipped by the British United fans, already on huge wages, being a British boy playing for the biggest British club, considering a move to Manchester f*cking City and holding our club to ransom.
My favorrite quote about the RVP signing is from RAWK.
Something like "SAF should have invested in midfield according to many and didn't need a striker, yet he spent most of his money on a striker and look he was right" Or something like that.
Can anyone find that post?
Something like "SAF should have invested in midfield according to many and didn't need a striker, yet he spent most of his money on a striker and look he was right" Or something like that.
Can anyone find that post?
Boyhood club or not, I'm from continental Europe myself and continental Europeans have often a special fondness to Real Madrid and Barcelona and no other club can compare to that. I think I've told this story in the Messi vs Ronaldo thread - friends of mine even named their son after Messi. You often see people in Real and Barcelona shirts. On top of that, Ronaldo comes from Portugal, a country with many similarities and connections to Spain.
And although I'd feel mad if I was an Arsenal fan, at the end of the day RVP had no choice. His move to Manchester United was a career decision. Arsenal aren't going to challenge for any bigger trophies in the next few years. Given his age, staying at Arsenal would have been career suicide.
Then you have Rooney, who is worshipped by the British United fans, already on huge wages, being a British boy playing for the biggest British club considering a move to Manchester f*cking City and holding our club to ransom.
He wanted a wage to match is ego, Ronaldo wanted a club to match his.
As I said, revisionism... but haters are gonna hate.
Boyhood club or not, I'm from continental Europe myself and continental Europeans have often a special fondness for Real Madrid and Barcelona and no other club can compare to that. I think I've told this story in the Messi vs Ronaldo thread - friends of mine even named their son after Messi. You often see people in Real and Barcelona shirts. On top of that, Ronaldo comes from Portugal, a country with many similarities and connections to Spain.
And although I'd feel mad if I was an Arsenal fan, at the end of the day RVP had no choice. His move to Manchester United was a career decision. Arsenal aren't going to challenge for any bigger trophies in the next few years. Considering his age, staying at Arsenal would have been career suicide.
Then you have Rooney, who is worshipped by the British United fans, already on huge wages, being a British boy playing for the biggest British club, considering a move to Manchester f*cking City and holding our club to ransom.
And yet your criticism of Rooney is nothing to do with that of a player. It's simply talking about the whole wage situation yet again.
The fact is that, for me, Ronaldo making that move to Real Madrid is no worse than Rooney going to Man City, if you take away the local rivalry aspect. The fact is that Real Madrid are one of our biggest European rivals and Ronaldo doing that only damaged any future hope we have of winning the Champions League because it weakened us and strengthened them.
As much as I don't agree, if you're saying Van Persie's move is a career one, then it could have been argued that Rooney was doing the same. He might have looked at us, without Ronaldo and Tevez, Chelsea as champions, and City on the up, as a dying force with a great manager who would not be around for much longer. I don't agree with that, but it's a case that could be argued if that's how you justify Van Persie's move.
Boyhood club or not, I'm from continental Europe myself and continental Europeans have often a special fondness for Real Madrid and Barcelona and no other club can compare to that. I think I've told this story in the Messi vs Ronaldo thread - friends of mine even named their son after Messi. You often see people in Real and Barcelona shirts. On top of that, Ronaldo comes from Portugal, a country with many similarities and connections to Spain.
And although I'd feel mad if I was an Arsenal fan, at the end of the day RVP had no choice. His move to Manchester United was a career decision. Arsenal aren't going to challenge for any bigger trophies in the next few years. Considering his age, staying at Arsenal would have been career suicide.
Then you have Rooney, who is worshipped by the British United fans, already on huge wages, being a British boy playing for the biggest British club, considering a move to Manchester f*cking City and holding our club to ransom.
I'm a fairly sure non British fans appreciate Rooney too. Me for instance!
I think he is a very unlikeable person and his contract thing left its mark. But I can look past that and still consider him our best and most important player.
With my red tinted glasses on, Ronaldo is a c*nt, but he was our c*nt and the years have mellowed the feelings of betrayal.
Rooney was merely an asshole, but SAF deemed him critical, and so its been proven so.
Just like Keane and Rio, its time we moved on (and I have) and and appreciated the criticality of our most important player.
You're probably right here but not for me, even 6 months ago I'd have said RVP, in fact I'm pretty certain I did on here a few times. He's World Class without question.
Think you missed the point Randall.
Anyway, feck it, he's here now and I couldn't give a shit about what possibly was happening then.
Yup. Ronaldo spent whole summer after our Champions League win flirting with Real, most people nowadays forget that.
I remember plenty on here calling van Persie's goal against Charlton a shinner.
I'm not going to, you know, prove it or anything though.
I'm not going to, you know, prove it or anything though.
Did shin it, to be fair. What a shin it was, though.
For the latter half of last season I thought maybe RVP was leading Rooney for the first time. But for me having them both here has made me think Rooney is the better player, if we judge them by who is more likely, when included in a team, to make that team win matches.
First few games of the season we were not very good. Van Persie saved us in some of them. But when Rooney came back he made us good again. RVP is a fantastic goalscorer but there have been a couple of games where the failure of the midfield to play well has caused him to go missing a bit. That couldn't really happen with Rooney, he's the one who makes us play well.
Not that I disagree but that is really Rooneys role, almost a playmaker with license to roam. Van Persie is playing right up top so he obviously isn't going to have such a great impact on the general build up play to the same extent. I still think the partnership is progressing nicely but can and will get better with time, which is exciting
You're one of the more unbiased posters around here though. There are plenty of others who thought Rooney was better and have probably started to change their mind now.
I've bolded 2 parts of your post as I'm guessing the first bolded part is what you meant considering that you included the second bold part?
The second paragraph makes zero sense by the way, Ronaldo sometimes played in RVP's role (right up top as last man) and occasionally he was unable to make us play better, "the failure of the midfield to play well causing him to go missing a bit". Same goes for Rooney too, plenty of games playing up top he's been unable to make us play better, and well, there's a pretty fecking obvious reason for that.
Think it through Brightonian.
As I said, you're probably right Cheesy.
Agreed, it's hard to prove. It's just a sense I get when watching them play. After all, it's not like RVP is Chico or Andy Carroll. He's perfectly capable of being a playmaker, and he was up and down the pitch as much as Rooney yesterday.
For me it's something Wayne's learnt from Scholes. He has this very rare ability to grab the game by the nuts and turn it into what he wants it to be. It's the reason why when he's in shit form, it's almost impossible for the team he's playing in to be in good form, and vice versa.
I regarded Rooney as marginally better and I only started appreciating RvP's moevement more when he came here (I admit I've hated him massively for this rape shit). Now I can watch him week in week out and he grew on me. You can't forget him carrying Arsenal last season too.
I'm somewhere Rooney>RvP/Rooney=RvP. The latter's got more class but it's hard to ignore what Rooney as a footballer is to this club. And some on here do.
I have to see them both on absolutely top form to decide finally.
Maybe but they are still playing different roles. Obviously the instructions issued to both players will vary immensely. It's like saying Ronaldo never defended at United. The lazy analysis is to say he didn't want to whereas really he was instructed to concentrate his efforts further forward. Suffice to say we have two excellent strikers who theoretically could form a magnificent tandem
Does it really matter who the better player is individually? They are both UTD players and its how they can best combine both their assets for the good of the team. If that means sacrificing certain aspects of each others game for the greater good, then so be it.
Still very early days but the signs are promising.
Robin scores goals, Rooney makes us tick. It'd be pointless if we would be comparing them via goals now. That made sense to an extent last season, but not this one.
That's a big if. It's like saying Beckham moving to Real Madrid would be no worse than Rooney moving to Liverpool, if you take away the local rivalry aspect.
At least with Ronaldo moving abroad, he hasn't necessarily strengthened City, whereas if Rooney had gotten his wish move he would've strengthened a direct domestic Rival and Man City at that. At least Ronaldo had the sense to not even consider a controversial move to another English club.
This is what some posters used to say when Ronaldo was shitting on everyone in England during his 42 goal season, something like "Ronaldo scores the goals, but Rooney is the heartbeat of United'. The problem with such descriptions as heartbeat or making us tick is that, it's really not measurable and it's a bit of a cop out. I think most would agree that Ronaldo was our most important player in that season, regardless of Rooney being a heartbeat or pulse or whatever. In fact, you could name a number of 'heartbeats' in our team, players like rio, vidic, VDS all were heartbeats of teams in that season, but only one really kept winning matches for us so consistently by banging them in. That's what top top class strikers are expected to do. Ronaldo, Messi, Van Persie, etc. Rooney's problem is his inconsistency of form. As world class striker, you're expected to be banging them in on a regular basis, not be relying on purple patches and being labelled ambiguous terms such as 'heartbeat' when you're off form.
To be fair if he had said he wanted to leave to join Liverpool because they were his boyhood team and he had loved them his whole life he would probably have been sectioned.
Ronaldo's attitude that entire summer was nothing short of disgraceful. I can't believe half our fans still chant about him and forgive him so easily despite all his nonsense that summer and with him agreeing with Blatter on the slave comments as well.
Must be the same ones who thought the Rooney overhead vs City wasn't a "clean" strike.
Yup. A disabled person can have a similar heartbeat as an astronaut.
You don't really think I'm comparing Rooney to a disabled person
You're an odd cookie, Snow.
That's not true, Robin allround game is better than Rooney's at the moment, plus he is scoring like crazy.
If we could only have one of Rooney and RVP in our team, who would you choose? I'd definitely choose Rooney.
Van Persie, hands down.
He is more handsome. I agree
Is he as handsome as you?
no, but he has nicer legs
We have both of them
Yeah, both his legs!
Injury free Robin van Persie every day of the week, that's not even a debate.
I would take Rooney over RVP, so I say it is debatable
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