it depends on what you are expecting.
When considering transfers these days it is made more difficult because the value of players is distorted by ridiculous transfers, see Liverpool under Kenny Dalglish (Downing, Carroll & Henderson ~£70million), or by ridiculously wealthy teams like Manchester City (Dzeko £27million) and Chelsea (Torres £50million). If you are comparing Robin Van Persie's £24million pound signing to the above-mentioned transfers it looks like very good business, as indeed do most transfers, excluding Bosko Balaban's £5.8million transfer to Aston Villa.
I think that Manchester United have done a good bit of business, after all Van Persie was the top goalscorer in the premiership last year. Part of me wonders why no one else really wanted to buy him. Van Persie is a typical Dutch forward who is technically excellent. He has an amazing left foot and is deadly when he shoots with it. However I have reservations about his work rate, sharpness and durability. For me he's not the type of forward who creates chances for himself with speed or skill, he has to rely on service. Undoubtedly he will get service at Manchester United and he will probably flourish like Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Dwight Yorke and Teddy Sheringham flourished before him.
Manchester United now have a stable of four proven forwards to choose from, something Fergie has been a fan of since the '99 treble winning side. Only Manchester City have more quality up front than United, which is perhaps why they didn't make a stronger play for him and why he didn't want to sign there. Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham are clubs with a greater need upfront but I think Van Persie has chosen well.
Van Persie has had only 'full seasons' in 3 of his 8 years at Arsenal, with an average of 35 games a season. This could be a worrying sign for a 29 year old forward although you could argue that he has less miles on the clock. Over the last 18 months Van Persie has been prolific scoring 59 goals in 81 games. In the premiership, where players are all but judged on their last performance, it's not surprising that he his highly rated.
Maybe I've had too much time on my hands but before I wrote this blog I did some research into the top strikers of the Premiership.
Number of seasons with more than 25 goals
Robin Van Persie 1
Andy Cole, Robbie Fowler 3
Ruud Van Nistelrooy 6
Alan Shearer, Thierry Henry 7
The other interesting finding from my research was that all of these great strikers had reached their goal scoring peak by the age of 26, whereas Van Persie's best haul of 37 goals came at the age of 28. Incidentally, Robbie Fowler had peaked with 36 goals at the age of 20. Between those 6 great strikers they have scored at least 30 goals in 20 seasons. 18 of those 30 goal seasons occurred when the striker was 28 years old or younger compared with 30 goal seasons for strikers aged 29 or over occurring only twice. Van Persie has just turned 29.
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| 25-29 Yellow 30-34 orange 35-39 red 40+ dark red |
For full stats follow this link.
In conclusion I do rate Van Persie and I think he has been unlucky with injury over the years. I just feel that he is overrated and I don't expect him to surpass last years tally of 37 goals or score more than 30 goals in his time at United. So if you expect him to be a world class striker I think you will be disappointed.
Interesting stats! I think the amount of chances he gets at utd mean that he'll be almost guaranteed 30 goals a season. And because he's more of a fox in the box he's likely to last longer than a pure athlete like drogba for example. Tom
ReplyDeleteI think that's a pic of Richard Bacon in a United shirt mate...
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