Robin van Persie | 2012-14 Performances

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Rozay said:
Well what do people think would have left us with the better team today:

a) Not signing van Persie, but signing a quality midfielder instead.

or

b) What actually happened, signing van Persie instead of a top midfielder.
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If Anderson somehow managed to stay fit for a prolonged period of time we would be one hell of a team. Actually we already are even without signing another top class CM. Carrick (on current form), Cleverley and Anderson is a great collection of players to choose from, with Scholes being able to help out. We're lacking in numbers, not necessarily in class if all stayed fit. As this hardly ever happens though we need a CM soon enough, but - so far - right now it seems signing RVP got us to the next level anyway.

What I would love to see soon is Carrick, Cleverley and Anderson in midfield, with Kagawa/Rooney roaming behind RVP. Options off the bench: Nani, Young, Valencia. SAF has assembled another terrific squad.
 
I loved his movement for the second goal, right before Chicharito's pass. He did something like it vs Arsenal, where he faked a move towards one way and quickly changed his run to go to the other, where Chicharito (and Rooney vs Arsenal) placed the pass.
 
Rozay said:
Well what do people think would have left us with the better team today:

a) Not signing van Persie, but signing a quality midfielder instead.

or

b) What actually happened, signing van Persie instead of a top midfielder.

People keep saying on here 'yea, I know he's good, but the money would have been better spent on a quality midfielder'. I'm personally not sure it works like that. I mean, despite our 'midfield woes', signing Messi in the summer would have improved us more than signing Schweinsteiger in my view.
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Yeah exactly. RvP is so good that we'd have had to have signed a Yaya Toure/Schweinsteiger/Pirlo level CM to be where we are. Though I don't think Fergie went 'if we sign RvP we won't sign a CM', it's just he's a bit blind when it comes to that area and thought we were fine there which isn't the case. It's a shame we don't have a world class CM to partner Carrick this year. With our attack we'd have a reasonable shot at the Champions League, and the Prem, although we are currently in a very good position, would be a cakewalk.
 
For me the most surprising and impressive thing about RVP this season is how hard he works when we dont have the ball. For me RVP is no less committed in this area than Rooney is, which is surprising because he's such a graceful and artistic player that you dont always think you'll get a shift out of this type of player.
 
There was a move near the end where him and Kagawa exchanged some quick passes before RVP played a ball wide to Welbeck who was on the run. One of the best moves I've seen us make this whole season. Imagine if it was Rooney at the end of that...:drool:
 
Sounds weird, but it was Van Persie's crossing and corners that changed the game for us today. There was a point whereby Wigan looked to be in the ascendency, only for Van Persie to whip in a few corners/cross and cause havoc amongst their defence. It gave us the impetus and we kicked on from there.

We probably would've broken through anyway, but it was really apparent how much it all changed at that point. Funny how much of a difference having a really good set piece taker makes even if it doesn't directly lead to a goal.
 
peterstorey said:
feck me, it's like van Persie descended from Olympus just last week.
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Its not just us that have noticed Van Persie is better today than before:

Robin van Persie is getting better and better – it’s incredible. He is a super professional player who really knows what he wants from his career and how he will achieve it. I have never seen any player reach Robin’s age and still improve as a footballer. Moving to United has been good for him – and it has been good for Holland.--Louis Van Gaal
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Sixpence said:
I'd rather he retired from the Holland side to be honest.
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Yeah same here. I suppose he doesn't think the way we fans do though. He naturally wants to help his country while he's in the prime of his career.
 
MotD must be especially torturous for Arsenal fans now. It's bad enough for United fans having to see THAT fecking goal in the intro but that's the past.. seeing us with their best player top of the league must be horrible.
 
Adam-Utd said:
To be fair though so far Carrick is having the season of his life IMO, and cleverley has stepped it up in the last few games.

Anderson was playing great til he got injured, i agree we need more depth with scholes / giggs on the way out, but i dont think it was a desperate desperate need to mean we shouldnt of signed van persie.

Who really could come into our midfield to improve it that isnt already at a top club?
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I think someone like Lars Bender would be a good option, great all round midfielder who has still room to improve, Ilkay Gündogan could be another option but of course both won't be cheap because they are still on fairly long contracts.

Yet I'm sure there are quite a few more CM talents around who could be worth adding to the squad.

Of course Vidal would probably be my favorite option atm but he is already playing for Juve and would be super expensive, so I doubt buying him would be an option anyways, the other two I think might be interested though but would still probably cost us around 30M €.
 
Good game from him again. That first goal was just a class finish, the keeper had no chance of keeping that out. RVP never seems to panic in the box and rush shots. You just know that if he does get the shot off in the box that it very likely to go in. Must be so difficult for defenders considering how difficult it is the get the ball off him. The number of times he got the ball and wiggled out of two or three players around him I lost count in this match.

Seems to be playing well with Hernandez as well, quite a few very nice through balls between the pair where Hernandez was only just off side. Hopefully they keep gelling and it makes the decision to bring Rooney straight back into the team difficult for SAF when the times comes
 
I'm always right said:
Nar, I love international tournaments and I love watching the best players play in them.
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Agreed. And I don't like this attitude that ideally all our players would just quit international football. It's arrogant, overly United-centric, and just not fair. Injuries happen to our players all the time in club matches and training, it's not as if when it happens on international duty there's been some horrific, easily avoidable catastrophe.

Plus plenty of our players benefit from international football. Hernandez, in particular, often seems to get out of poor form by going to Mexico and scoring a few. Not that he needs it at the moment, of course. And Cleverley's Olympic football got him going nicely for this season, and seemed to do a lot for his confidence after it got knocked by those long injury layoffs last season.
 
Lynk said:
igW27aVrPnacA.gif
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Not for one second did I doubt that he'd score that one. Right from the moment he received it, regardless of the time he took or the players around him - I knew that was going in.

What a player.
 
Gazza said:
Don't flatter your club, he's actually just reached Olympus ;)
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Harsh for Arsenal fans but true. Van Persie just looks relentless at the moment. He desperately want's success and he's determined to get it. I can imagine the frustration he must have felt to produce so much effort without reward. From his quotes he feels liberated in our side. We've just got more top level performers who can get the best out of players like him. As long as we keep supplying him, he'll keep delivering.

There's no doubt about that.
 
Yeah, he looks like he's really enjoying himself.

Can't help but laugh at Pete. I can't fathom why he's so determined to come in this thread knowing it's nothing for him here but agony and pain - and then proceeds to make a comment he knows we'll piss ourselves laughing about! :lol:

Must be pure hell for him to watch RvP run along like a child in the streets at OT.
 
It's hard to think anyone other than Messi or Ronaldo would have improved us as much as RVP has. Certainly if we had signed a midfielder instead it would have had to be someone at the Xavi, Iniesta, Schweinsteiger, Pirlo, Fabregas level not the likes of Dembele, Banega, Martinez or Ander Herrera to make such an impact.

MadDogg said:
Nah, Ronaldo contributed more to our attacking game than RVP does. Firstly just for the sake that every opposition team were shit-scared of him and were half-beaten before they came out, but also his dribbling and ability to constantly find space to receive the ball in attacking areas or as an outlet put him at another level. His overall contribution to our attacking play was amazing.

RVP is fantastic but it's more on the level of Rooney, not Ronaldo.
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He's somewhere in between for me. When Ronaldo was here you were confident we could take anyone (at least until Guardiola rocked up at Barcelona) because no matter who we played you knew we had the best player on the field.

With Rooney it was more that he might have a good game and if he was at his absolute best we'd win, but he might not turn up either and our midfield will probably get overrrun and we'll either all pull together and scrape a win or we'll lose. With RVP in the team you never go into a game in the PL anymore thinking there's a decent chance we'll lose this or a draw will be a great result.

Where as with RVP he doesn't quite have that Ronaldo level of fear but he's definitely a class above Rooney in terms of both consistency and general skill for me. He just scores great goals all the time, almost every week and even when he's not at his best he doesn't start controlling the ball like a pub player and he still usually scores at some point anyway.

I think a lot of us had forgotten how good it felt to have a genuine world class, absolutely top level player in your attack the last few years.

I'm always right said:
Nar, I love international tournaments and I love watching the best players play in them.
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We all love United, but there's nothing better than taking a fortnight off work and watching a World Cup.
 
lunchforthesky said:
It's hard to think anyone other than Messi or Ronaldo would have improved us as much as RVP has. Certainly if we had signed a midfielder instead it would have had to be someone at the Xavi, Iniesta, Schweinsteiger, Pirlo, Fabregas level not the likes of Dembele, Banega, Martinez or Ander Herrera to make such an impact.



He's somewhere in between for me. When Ronaldo was here you were confident we could take anyone (at least until Guardiola rocked up at Barcelona) because no matter who we played you knew we had the best player on the field.

With Rooney it was more that he might have a good game and if he was at his absolute best we'd win, but he might not turn up either and our midfield will probably get overrrun and we'll either all pull together or scrape a win.

Where as with RVP he doesn't quite have that Ronaldo level of fear but he's definitely a class above Rooney in terms of both consistency and general skill for me. He just scores great goals all the time, almost every week and even when he's not at his best he doesn't start controlling the ball like a pub player and he still usually scores at some point anyway.

I think a lot of us had forgotten how good it felt to have a genuine world class, absolutely top level player in your attack the last few years.
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Great post. The parts I've bolded, I especially agree with.
 
Rooney 09/10 was genuine world class attacker for me, would've hit 40 if he didn't get injured and I reckon we would've won the league and beat Bayern.
 
And he sometimes still misses the easy chances.

Imagine if he sorts that out.
 
AttackingFlair said:
Rooney 09/10 was genuine world class attacker for me, would've hit 40 if he didn't get injured and I reckon we would've won the league and beat Bayern.
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Guaranteed on the Bayern bit. We were 3-0 up against them in the home game after all, even with him coming off injured.

That inexperience from Rafael cost us inthat game, that and tha tridiculous Robben volley.
 
If Rooney can get back into top form aswell i feel genuinely we could win the CL this year. If our defence carries on improving and carry on with the clean sheets we could 3/4 nil quite a few teams this year.
 
Sandikan said:
Guaranteed on the Bayern bit. We were 3-0 up against them in the home game after all, even with him coming off injured.

That inexperience from Rafael cost us inthat game, that and tha tridiculous Robben volley.
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The buzz when everyone found out Rooney would be starting was something really special and lifted the whole team.

We had Chelsea to play in the league at OT and unfortunately Rooney was injured for that game, I would've backed us to beat them with him. He was outstanding in the reverse fixture IIRC.
 
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Look how close the ball is to his right foot when shooting. Every part of that goal was brilliant, but I just noticed that he didn't really have much room to work with to shoot and it just seemed to just hurl a boot at the ball and yet it's still incredibly accurate.

Majestic player to watch.
 
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