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Saturday 30 June 2012

ROBIN VAN PODOLSKI


With all remaining Arsenal players no longer participating in the Euros, we now look forward to the hectic transfer window speculation which promises to be filled with minute-by-minute updates on who Arsenal are "making moves" for, blah, blah, blah... As we all know, Arsenal have already snapped up two of Europes most proflific strikers last season and we are not even in July.

Welcome Olivier Giroud. More so, welcome to Lukas Podolski, whose future position in the Arsenal team is inexplicably linked to whether Van Persie signs a new deal at Arsenal. The parallel between the two is there for us to see.

Even if you compare the comments made by Wenger upon signing both players, he hails the comparable qualities of both players'. When Wenger signed Robin van Persie in 2004, he said, "He can play on the left side of midfield, as a creative player behind the main strikers or as a target man." Sound familiar?


Robin van Persie with his PFA Award
Fast forward to 2012 and the season where Robin van Persie had finally delivered on the managers' belief that he would play as a centre forward. He smashed in 37 goals, while being captain, winning various personal accolades and firing Arsenal to 3rd in a turbulent season for the club. The bad side of this is, his fantastic form coincides with his contract being up in a year and being available for a free transfer.



Many Arsenal fans are becoming used to players having 1 or 2 great seasons and then leaving after years of waiting for them to deliver. However, once a player leaves we always have an internal solution who is ready to step up but quite honestly, in the case of RvP, we have Bendtner, Vela, Chamakh and Park Chu-Young who are not capable of scoring the amount of goals Arsenal require from their strikers.

You can call me sceptical but this does have me wonder why Wenger moved so sharply for Lukas Podolski, 27, who is left footed, similar in style to our own Robin van Persie, 28, and has even been playing in the same false number 9 role for FC Koln while wearing the number 10 shirt. When players are brought into the team it is normally to give you a different option in that department.

Not only this but Arsenal took the decision to wrap up this deal and announce it in May BEFORE the season had even finished. As Arsenal announced the signing of Podolski, Wenger said, “He is a versatile striker - he can play through the middle, behind the striker, up front, on the left and on the right." This highlights the almost identical similarities when comparing the two players.

Lukas Podolski

Announcing a deal so early is far from a typical Arsenal scenario. Was this Wenger ensuring we had a striker already in, incase van Persie decides to leave? Or was this Wenger genuinely adding to our armoury in order to provide cover/options to our ONLY top class striker.

Wenger has spoken of the desperate need to help van Persie with goals coming from different parts of the pitch and this has to be undoubtedly his WORST collection of strikers in his 16 year tenure. However, with the 25 man squad rule, your players MUST be capable of covering different positons and our current bunch of strikers, except van Persie, are not versatile enough.

We also have a vacant left wing slot and regardless of whether we love Oxlade-Chamberlain or not not, Podolski is not coming to play second fiddle to him or Gervinho. With Arshavin looking likely to move back to Zenit and Benayoun not being signed permanently, Podolski will give us a totally different option on the left hand side as a left-sided, left footed attacker.

The similarities run deep in the pair; They both had a poor Euro 2012 tournament, in comparison to the standards they have set, with both of their solitary goals even coming with their weaker right foot!

I honestly hope Podolski is coming to be his own man and not simply fill the boots of a departing van Persie.

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