Sunday Round Up – RVP, Dzeko, Benzema & Internationals 28 June, 2009

Happy Sunday to you. Not a great deal of news today, nothing major’s happened anyway. I guess the top story is Robin van Persie saying he will be staying at Arsenal. To be honest I was never worried that he’d leave but it was a risk. Well he’s confirmed that he wants to remain in North London and he wants to become the best while he’s bere:

“I’m not in negotiations with any other club – just Arsenal. I want to become the best player in the world. My career will only be a success when I consider myself the best. Anything less won’t do.

I see the potential at Arsenal. We have to do it. One fact which aggravates me is that in the five years I’ve been at Arsenal, we’ve won exactly the same number of trophies as I did at Feyenoord – ONE – that’s not enough. When I arrived here, Arsenal were winning trophies for fun. But, if everyone is fit, we have a heck of a team and it’s up to me to ensure we go out and win these trophies.”

Ambitious statements from Robin but fair play, he should set his aims high. It really hits home that statement he gives at the end there – we’ve won one trophy in five years. When you think of it like that you can maybe understand Robin hesitating over his new contract. I’m glad that he does understand the potential of the side though and is going to stick with it. Hopefully he can get that new contract signed up soon.

There’s some news on Adebayor’s possible transfer. As I said in the week AC Milan want Dzeko from Wolfsburg, if not they’ll take Adebayor as second choice. Dzeko is the ball that’s going to get everything rolling and he’s said he’ll be staying at Wolfsburg but not by his own will:

“I am not happy. I would like to join Milan, but I am tied to a contract and the club have decided not to release me.”

Doesn’t sound concrete to me but if he’s going to honour his contract then good on him. Wolfsburg will probably offer him a better deal but he’ll probably reject it. It might force the Bundesliga champions to cash in and sell him while the iron is hot, as they say. I don’t know why ‘they’ say that or who ‘they ‘ are but that’s not important.

Well if the Dzeko thing does fall through then they are supposed to be coming in for Ade. I think if anything £20m+ gets offered we’ll take it right away. More on this next week I’m sure.

The News of The World and The Sunday Times are both reporting us making a move for Lyon’s Karim Benzema. He’s a great player and I’d love us to get him but I don’t really believe these rumours. Man United are supposed to be getting him with some of the Ronaldo money and that would price us out immediately. The only way we’d want Benzema is if Adebayor did get sold but even then I don’t think we can win a bidding war with Man United. The tabloids are saying the player would rather join Arsenal than the Premier League Champions but, well, that what the tabloids say and they might as well be saying he prefers Cheerio’s to Coco Pops… whatever they say could be bollocks.

On Friday night I watched the England U21s play Sweden in the Euro 09 Semi Finals. Theo Walcott and Kieran Gibbs were involved and played a full 120 minutes each. I tuned in at half time when England were 3-0 up and they managed to throw it away in the second half forcing extra time. The scores stayed 3-3 and it was penalties to decide who went through to the final. Theo and Gibbs converted both their penalties and we’ll be playing Germany in the final tomorrow night.

I’ll definitely be watching that, any England vs. Germany final is worth watching. Theo Walcott will be playing centre forward as Agbonlahor and Campbell are suspended; ‘keeper Joe Hart will also miss out after picking up a yellow in the shoot-out. So hopefully Theo will score but to be honest he didn’t have a good game on Friday, he was sloppy and made some poor decisions. However with his pace he’s always a threat so hopefully he can up his technical side for the final.

Cesc Fabregas’ Spain won today in the 3rd/4th place play off against South Africa, however Cesc was an unused substitute the whole game. It was a dramatic end to the match, South Africa went 1-0 up in the 73rd minute but two goals from Guiza in the 88th and 89th minute put Spain 2-1 up right at the end. However South Africa made it three goals in three minutes scoring in the 90th minute to force extra time. Spain won in the second half of extra time thanks to Alonso.

The Confederations Cup Final is on in an hour, I’m gonna watch that and hopefully get a look at Melo and see if he’s actually any good. Thanks for reading.