An Address To The Better Off

Only one place to start, and that's with the unveiling of Robin van Persie.  This Guardian article has the essential quotes. Starting with van Persie himself, who said all the right things:

The Dutchman, 29, says he chose United over City because of their football heritage. "Manchester United breathe football in every aspect, for me it was quite soon that I made my decision," he said.

"It was based on a lot of things and all those things went to Manchester United. When you have to make a hard decision in your life I always listen to the little boy inside me. What does he want? That little boy was screaming for Manchester United. I have had lots of challenges, but how it stands now, this is my biggest."

Sir Alex pointed to his experience: 

"He's what we have needed for the last couple of years," the Scot said. "He's got maturity to his game, authority, timing and understanding of the game. I think we will benefit for the next four years and beyond.

"He's a player that every time I gave team talks was a problem for us because he kept popping up in different positions, sometimes on the right, sometimes dropping off, sometimes in the middle, so at least I've taken that problem away."

...

"I think the point I'm making about maturity is we needed a finished player. [Paul] Scholes and [Ryan] Giggs are coming to the end. I think we were still capable of winning the title without Robin, but he gives us a sort of certainty for the future."

The Sun make much of one line from van Persie:

“It’s always difficult to find a perfect match but I think this is a perfect match for me.”

The Mirror have van Persie's comments on the number 20 shirt he'll be wearing:

"I took the No.20 shirt because I'm here to win a 20th title with United."

Yes, he's quite the charmer.

Several papers make much of Sir Alex mentioning Cantona's name with van Persie's, including The Mail:

'Robin is what we have needed for the last couple of years. We needed a finished player. We have had several players who have been this sort of catalyst, starting with Eric Cantona.

'We were still capable of winning the title without Robin but he gives us a sort of certainty for the future."

And The Telegraph, quoting Sir Alex:

“He [van Persie] can play, score, he’s quick, he’s a different physical specimen to the players we have. Also, you always learn from great players. If you look at what Cantona did, he was a tremendous teacher for the young players and I think Danny Welbeck will welcome that.”

The Independent use the same quotes, and a few more, to elaborate on van Persie's reasons for joining us:

Van Persie, who began yesterday's press conference in a decorous mood by thanking Arsène Wenger and the Gunners' fans for their support during his eight years in north London, spoke of entering a club which felt like a family; somewhere easy to fit in. He also communicated a vision of something great beginning to happen at Old Trafford as they desperately try to wrench back the title.

But why, with solid interest from Roberto Mancini's champions, did he choose red over blue? "Everyone knows me by now. I'm a lover of football. In that respect I'm quite principled," the striker said.

"It is always quite difficult to find a perfect match but I do feel that this is perfect for me. Manchester United breathe football and if you look at all the players, the stadium and the manager, my choice was made very soon in my mind if you were basing it on those two clubs.

...

"This is like a family club. In that respect it isn't a big difference [to Arsenal]. Let me make one thing clear – because I don't want things twisted – is that from my side, and Arsenal as well, there are no hard feelings. There were certain elements which were vital to me that we had a different view. That is life. Nobody is angry at me and I'm not angry at them."

 The Independent also have Wenger's humorous response to Sir Alex's 1999 claim:

Ferguson claimed that Teddy Sheringham, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole were "the best strikers in Europe at the time" and believes he has something akin to that now at Old Trafford.

Wenger dismissed that but revealed his anxiety over selling Van Persie to their bitter rivals. "Ferguson is a bit too confident when he says they are like 1999," said Wenger. "But of course it increases their potential offensively because they got a world-class player. But they have a number of players, like Hernandez and Welbeck, who have a restricted chance to play.

Onto other things, and Daniel Taylor's season preview in The Guardian looks at the importance of van Persie (Needless to say, Mancini's words taken with pinch of salt):

Ferguson now has the reigning footballer-of-the-year and the runner-up, Wayne Rooney, as his first-choice strike-force. Between them, they scored 71 goals last season. With Javier Hernández and Danny Welbeck in reserve, there is a strong argument United have the best attacking quartet in the league.

"Or, I think, in the world," Mancini said. Six words that told us, even if it was not his intention, that he rates them as better, collectively, than those at Manchester City.

...

What can be said with certainty is that City started thinking of Van Persie as their top target for this summer as long ago as last September. The plan this summer was to buy Van Persie and sell Edin Dzeko, so to lose the Dutchman to their main rivals is a considerable setback. "Without Van Persie, they [United] had two yards in front of us," Mancini said. "Now, with Van Persie, they have four or five."

Rio gets fined over the "choc ice" Twitter thing and Sir Alex doesn't understand Twitter, neither exactly surprising.

The Mail have a Nani to Zenit story.  Yawn.

Season previews abound, with papers having a competition to see who can get the worst columnist.  The Sun persevere with Terry Venables.  The Mirror make a pretty successful bid by getting the opinions of Kenny Dalglish.  Read neither.

In his season preview, Henry Winter says, paraphrasing, "get over the Olympics," and points to the importance of football:

So we should celebrate two great sporting institutions, the Olympics and English league football, not use one to beat the other. They owe each other.

The Premier League contributed handsomely to the public purse that helped fund London 2012: last season alone, the elite clubs paid £900 million tax on (admittedly crazy) wages, £100 million on VAT on (admittedly expensive) tickets and £50 million on stadium business rates.

Finally, Mark Fisher on The Guardian's "Comment is free", has an excellent piece on the wrongheadedness of the Olympic/football comparison.  It's well worth a read, and I'm tempted to quote huge chunks of it, but go read it instead, and I'll just quote this small portion:

Just as the banking crisis of 2008 is blamed on the "greed" of bankers, so the cause of football's problems is held to be the dubious morality of players. But modern football only reflects back the values of neoliberal capitalism: if we don't like these values, we should blame the causes, not the symptom. Footballers' "lack of loyalty", for instance, is not an indication of players' moral delinquency. Instead, the capacity to move on quickly without forming lasting attachments is a skill that the contemporary capitalist world inculcates and relies upon. As sociologist Richard Sennett argues, the slogan for the current form of capitalism is "No long term: keep moving, don't commit yourself, and don't sacrifice."

Similarly, one curious aspect of the frequent complaints about footballers' inflated wages is the failure to recognise that this is a perfect example of market dynamics. Unlike London 2012, the Premier League isn't funded out of public money, and it is "market forces" alone that determine how high players' remuneration will be. There's always been a nasty strain of class prejudice ingrained in the condemnation of football's "undeserving rich", as if the working class is uniquely susceptible to being corrupted by money, and as if they deserve their wealth less than those born to it.