Saturday, July 14th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

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By Tony Attwood

Why do players leave Arsenal?

More money,being fed up with the management team,wanting to go back home,being fed up with the endless criticism of them and their style of play in the press, being fed up with UK tax rates compared with the concessionary rates elsewhere…

We’ve had this for years.  Brady, Stapleton, Kennedy – the stars of earlier eras got up and left, just as the stars of today do.

But what made me bring this up just now was something RVP said (or whoever wrote the blog with the “non-renewal” comments said…

“…it has again become clear to me that we in many aspects disagree on the way Arsenal should move forward.”

Now let me concede at once that RVP has not said, “this is how Arsenal must play”.  As far as we know when Mr Wenger suggested he play as a number 9, he was doubtful, but agreed to do it, as you would expect any decent employee to do, and found indeed he could.

But RVP has said that he disagrees how Arsenal should move forward, and so he is ready to leave the club.  He’s been paid a lot of money, his contract is coming to an end, and he has decided to exercise his right and move on.   He has that right, just as when I was in employment (rather than running my own firm) I had the same right.

The point I am edging towards is that he has not said he wants to move for more money, and did not say he wants to move (as many players have suggested before) because he wants a longer contract, so as to be able to secure his salary for longer.  He wants to move because he does not agree about how the club is being run.

I am not sure we have had this reason given to us before for leaving Arsenal.  What we have had is:

1.  Wanting to go back home (Cesc).

2.  Wanting more money (Cole)

3.  Wanting to play for a top team on the world stage (Hleb – oops, Henry – occasional)

4.  Being unhappy (Anelka)

5.  Wanting to play overseas just to see what it is like (Brady)

6.  Wanting to play for a club judged more likely to win the League (Nasri)

7.  Preferring one’s home country to England (Wiltord)

8.  Wanting money, money, money, stardom, fame, money etc (Adebayor)

9.  Wanting first team experience now (Bentley)

10.  Fancying a bit of money laundering (although this of course has not been proven): Diarra.

Of course most players leave because the club wants them to leave because they have not come up to expectations.  All clubs do this, although few do it quite so dramatically as Liverpool as with Andy Carroll whom they are thinking of selling back to Newcastle for £10m one year after buying him for £35m.  (Can you imagine what the AAA would make of that if Mr Wenger got anywhere near such a preposterous moment?)

Anyway, the list of people leaving could go on and on.  And indeed RVP is lucky because   Arsenal must have had some negative thoughts about RVP and his insistence on playing for his country even when injured.  In fact given the way the Netherlands have played of late, I wonder if RVP put a similar point to the manager of his country’s team, and considered taking out an alternative nationality with a country more likely to win.  It happens quite a lot I am told.  Was he in fact telling the manager of the Netherlands how to play – and now expects to be able to do the same with Arsenal?   I think it is possible?

But back to the theme…

It is now beyond doubt that contracts are worth very little.  Cesc had about 250 years left to run on his deal with Arsenal (I exaggerate of course but it was quite a long contract) in an attempt to tie him down, and he went back to his homeland.  We have had the players in their last year of contract deciding not to renew.

I suspect that although few others are likely to follow Cole’s stupidity in coming out and saying that the offer of £2.6m a year in salary, plus bonuses, was laughable, nevertheless money is probably as big an issue as there is.

When a player transfers he will probably get a pay rise, a signing on fee, and some other goodies too – and of course it adds to his publicity, which adds to his value.  You need a singularly stable, astute and intelligent man to stay at a club for a long time (like Bergkamp) or indeed one who knows what it is like to have his talent and ability ridiculed both by his own club and the national media ( also Bergkamp).

I do know, from private conversations with those involved, that despite the obvious fact that 99% of kids who play for top clubs as juniors don’t actually make it through, the overwhelming majority are not interested in training for another trade either because they are sure they will indeed make it, or because they have an idiot father who says that training for a backup trade is an admission of weakness.  Self-belief is strong in football.

And so there is a belief in every player from Flamini to Hleb that from Adebayor to Nasri that moving on will bring wealth, fame and fortune.   Occasionally that is right – Henry’s move to Arsenal was the best thing he ever did.   Cole’s move to Chelsea left him with a reputation as a git, which is about right, but it gave him what he craved more than anything: money.

But for so many players it doesn’t work out.

And that brings me back to RVP.  He is expressing the view that he has to share the vision and approach of the club for him to be able to play for that club.  OK, so what club is now actually going to tell him the truth when he signs for them?

Man City will tell him that he is going to be their new No 9 and play in every game.  And will he?  I imagine Nasri was probably told he would play in every game – just as Flamini was probably told the same at Milan.  (Mind you Flamini was also told that Milan were in the Champs League the following season, and then found to his horror they were not.  As I reported in an earlier piece Flamini couldn’t get anyone to buy him when his contract ended at Milan, and after a while without a club had to re-sign at a much, much, much, much lower salary.

A player who wants to share a vision with the club about the future will generally include in that vision the fact that he plays a lot and wins stuff.  Not that he isn’t actually that good and that it is more than likely that the manager will need to tell him that unless he really applies himself and works hard he won’t play much more (as happened to Nasri).

No club can hold onto a player now.  No player can trust his club.

In fact it is probably time for both players and managers to shut up and leave the commentary to the bloggers.

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