RvP

UnitedSofa

You'll Never Walk Away
Joined
Jul 12, 2013
Messages
7,017
It still amazes me how good of a player he was & for £20M I think it was? 10 years ago fees were very different, but when you think about it.

Rival team, star striker, for £20M! We got a hell of a bargain.

Probably one of the last out and out strikers we’ve actually had at the club. (Rooney was more than just a striker in my opinion) - Oh what we could do with a 28 year old RvP now eh?
 
UnitedSofa said:
It still amazes me how good of a player he was & for £20M I think it was? 10 years ago fees were very different, but when you think about it.

Rival team, star striker, for £20M! We got a hell of a bargain.

Probably one of the last out and out strikers we’ve actually had at the club. (Rooney was more than just a striker in my opinion) - Oh what we could do with a 28 year old RvP now eh?
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Think it was 24m? But yeah, absolutely brilliant signing.
 
UnitedSofa said:
It still amazes me how good of a player he was & for £20M I think it was? 10 years ago fees were very different, but when you think about it.

Rival team, star striker, for £20M! We got a hell of a bargain.

Probably one of the last out and out strikers we’ve actually had at the club. (Rooney was more than just a striker in my opinion) - Oh what we could do with a 28 year old RvP now eh?
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Aahhh! almost makes me cry thinking of that possibility.
 
His price even for the time was very cheap, prices back then were already approaching mental.
 
Still a very unusual signing

how many players in their prime off a league rival did we get over the Fergie years? Andy Cole, Cantona and RVP are all I can think of
 
Best ‘striker’ we’ve had for me, and right up there with the best ever in the PL.
 
Spaghetti said:
Rio? Rooney?
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Rooney off Everton. I meant a league potential winning rival

rio yeah I’ll give you that although Leeds were on slippery slope I think when we got him
 
It was very weird when LvG got rid of him given their link from Dutch team
 
It turned out to be a bargain but I remember thinking at the time it was a massive risk. 29 Years old, injury prone and with only a year left on his contract.
 
One of the weirdest transfers ever.

One of the classiest players we’ve had in the last 15 years. The manner of his exit still baffles me, but the LVG era in general was baffling.
 
Easy in hindsight but at the time 24m for an aging crock in his final year was questioned by both fans and media. Was called a panic buy in response to losing the title.
 
Great season but he lost a lot of the ratings I had for him after his fall off post Fergie. It made no sense how he went from world class to good to washed in the space of two seasons.

It made sense with the likes of Rio, Vidic, Rooney as they were already on a downward trajectory before SAF left. RVP was only 30 after his first season which is Kane’s current age, he should’ve been able to lead us for the next three seasons at least.

I guess he wasn’t here long enough to get the Arsenal out of him.
 
Reditus said:
Still a very unusual signing

how many players in their prime off a league rival did we get over the Fergie years? Andy Cole, Cantona and RVP are all I can think of
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Don't forget David May.
 
Absolute legend! Despite the fact he spent most of his years at a rival club. So much class, the fact that he only gave us one real stand out season and is adored by the fan base tells you everything about him. That one season did basically win us are last title to be fair so I can see why he’s so loved.
 
Wish Fergie stayed. We would've won more trophies for sure.
 
As I recall, Fergie allowed him to have a special training regimen on account of his injuries but that would not fly with LvG, so things changed quickly. I do remember how RvP introduced himself to OT by scoring a blinder early in his first game there.
 
Really good but I always felt we were unlucky by his complete drop off. You see Kane still flying and Benzema, Ibra and Lewandowski flying in their mid 30s. If Van Persie could have kept a similar level until 2017 or 2018 it could have made a big difference in the post Fergie transition.
 
We were easily good enough to win the Champions League with him that season.

Until that Nani red card happened.

Think he would have stayed at his peak for a few more years if Fergie didn't retire.
 
LVG is probably our worst manager . Got rid of lot of characters and replaced them with duds.
 
Loved him. Always felt like he would come up with something special whenever he played. That sweet left foot, how he shaped his body, the little feints, the setpeices. One of my favorite players despite only playing for us for such short time.
 
His very first shot for the club was that magnificent volley against Fulham. Such a beauty of a finish. Right there, you knew he'd be gold. Between 2011-12 & 2012-13, when he was injury-free for the most part, he was up there with the best in the world.
 
Look what Harry Kane went for this summer with a similar situation regarding his contract. Actually this depresses me further our success back then was based on having the best players in the league.

How many times did we break club transfer records under Fergie? Mark Hughes, Gary Pallister, Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Jaap Stam, Dwight Yorke, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Juan Sebastian Veron, Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney etc.

Our club transfer record now remains the same since 2016 when we bought Pogba - that's 8 years - not sure there's any other club in the league with such a long standing highest transfer fee.
 
SirMattlives said:
As I recall, Fergie allowed him to have a special training regimen on account of his injuries
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Correct. And not just RVP; Rio also, and possibly others. Fergie became a master at getting the best out of crocks by careful management of their training regimes and game time
but that would not fly with LvG, so things changed quickly. I do remember how RvP introduced himself to OT by scoring a blinder early in his first game there.
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Not LvG; Moyes. He was much more of an old fashioned sergeant major type of manager, who didn’t believe in special treatment of individuals and had them all running up hills till they were sick.

He overplayed them as well. Rio hadn’t played more than one game a week for ages until Moyes arrived. I vaguely remember him responding to a question about RvP being played while injured with some rubbish about the fans demanding that he play.
 
RVP was pure class, it was a great signing even if it was unusual, but I think by then SAF and Wenger had gotten over their rivalry, mostly because SAF knew Arsenal weren't a serious challenger anymore. No chance he would have let RVP go to Utd if Arsenal were serious contenders.

stevoc said:
Don't forget David May.
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And Henning Berg. Wasn't he a record fee for a defender or close to it?
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Really good but I always felt we were unlucky by his complete drop off. You see Kane still flying and Benzema, Ibra and Lewandowski flying in their mid 30s. If Van Persie could have kept a similar level until 2017 or 2018 it could have made a big difference in the post Fergie transition.
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What made us even more unlucky was both him and Rooney hitting the wall at just 30. With RvP you also excepted him to age well because his game wasn’t all about pace/power and his injury record at Arsenal meant he didn’t have much mileage in his legs. So that was a real bummer. Then we sign 30 year old Alexis Sanchez and he also turns out to be past it.

And all of this happens after Giggs and Scholes age better than almost any PL footballer ever. WTF?!
 
SirMattlives said:
As I recall, Fergie allowed him to have a special training regimen on account of his injuries but that would not fly with LvG, so things changed quickly. I do remember how RvP introduced himself to OT by scoring a blinder early in his first game there.
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It was Moyes that changed his training regime.
 
It's just a shame that he joined after Rooney's peak. In 11/12, I thought Rooney was still great (especially when linking up with Welbeck) but he had pretty much an immediate drop off in 12/13 which mainly came down to his physique. He got noticeably more chunkier after starting the season relatively lean.

Imagine 12/13 RvP with this Rooney just a year prior:

 
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