right, a few points to make. Koscielny has been our best defender this season. If vertonghen does come in, I doubt he will be first 11, but more of a rotational player for when we need him. That way we have 3 top class CBs to use. and 43 goals is quite good when you consider the injuries in that department this season. i mean come on, we played 5-10 games with no full backs! think Wilshere and Rosicky are too similar players (box-to-box) with their endless running. Wilshere will be moved further up field to where he used to play and shine in the reserves. only reason he was deeper last year was due to fabregas. he can take the more influential attacking role with arteta deeper. of course with the rotation as well. and doesn't podolski play in the middle for Köln? for germany he plays wide left, due to Gomez/Klose, but for Köln i'm pretty sure he's played up front on his own.
OK firstly what are you basing this on? The stats point to Vermaelen being our best defender. This season we have conceded 1.01 goals game when he plays and 1.53 when he does'nt. Koscielney has played more games than ANY of our other defenders over the last two seasons. In that time we have shipped in a massive 87 league goals.(compared to 59 by United) He's a good player but not a great 'defender' and the stats prove it. Vertonghen is twice the player Koscielney is and would walk straight into our starting line up. The teams that win the league generally concedes no more than 30-35 goals in a season.(we're on 43 with three games to go.) Podolski plays both wide left and down the middle for Köln.
Every year my expectation for us is to win the league, and get out of the CL group. That would be the bare minimum for a successful season. We actually can achieve this by: 1) Getting David Dein back now. 2) Qualify for the CL with 3 straight wins from here on in 3) Signing RVP, Walcott (or a replacement if someone wants to pay us £20m), Goetze, Vertognen or Hummels, Podolski 4) Wilshere comes back fit 5) Joel Campbell gets work permit 6) Get rid of Almunia, Denilson, Chamakh, Park, Squillaci, Arshavin, Vela, Bendtner 7) bring in a new second in command (I would have Keown or Adams) and let them work primarily on the defesive side of the game 8) Do all transfer business before the Euro's in mid June 9) Get no long term injuries to our players over the summer There you go, a simple 9 point plan to bring back the glory days Point 10, but not necessarily needed, would be to trim 15 players from our 3rd/4th string. 71 professionals is way way too much.
Only point 9 is really down to chance. The others can be achieved with a few motivated indivuals burning the midnight oil, plus a few instances of people at the club swallowing their pride.
I don't think Dein is the silver bullet everyone thinks he is. He did a good job, but he was not the only factor in our success during that time and the football financial world has changed. I'm not saying that he wouldn't be successful, but I don't think getting him back would necessarily be the cure-all that everybody thinks it would be. I wouldn't sell Walcott for 20M. I think his replacement cost would be almost double that. I don't think Keown or Adams are qualified to coach us at that level (no insult to them intended). They would need to gain experience coaching at a lower level of the club, or another top team, before they could take on a "Second in command" role. If you want the ex-player defensive option, I would suggest that Bould is your man. It is very unlikely that all our transfer business will be concluded before the Euros, although that is a good objective. Any signing that involves offers from other clubs, or is not related to contract that is expiring within a year (or one that has a release clause), will be protracted to nearer the end of the window as the selling clubs and the players try to find a better deal, or a replacement. Unless of course we offer more money than we have to, which we all know isn't likely. I think we are going to try and get deals done, but it isn't going to be up to us entirely.
I'll add a few points of my own: How has Vermaelen been a better defender than Koscielny ? He's made more mistakes and always seems to be out of position. The stats provided prove nothing at all, my arse sensor tells me that it's not even close. How are Rosicky and Wilshere too similar ? Wilshere has more steel and plays a more simple passing games then turns into a dribbler as and when necessary. Rosicky is more of a dribbler. I'd have Arteta in the team before Song, we miss the way he dictates the tempo of the game and his passing is vitally important. Walcott replacement would cost almost double £20m Lets see .. a player who can play wide or up front .... scores goals .. gets a few assists ..... we are in the process of buying one for £11m, 17 goals and 6 assists .. compared to Walcott's 8 goals and 8 assists
TT tries his best to sound intelligent but sadly fails. He has come out with some classics lately with Mata and now Walcott's replacement would be £40m. Now he's put Walcott in the relm of Aguero, Tevez, Silva, Benzema etc.
if you watch how wilshere used to play (only really youtube videos) you will see that he is actually a dribbler. the sitting deeper in midfield forced him to pass it simply and effectively like arteta, but his natural position and style is much more like rosicky. and i also think that if you think vermaelen is a better defender than koscielny, then clearly you haven't been watching our matches. motd only is it? koscielny is bigger and stronger, better positionally and at tackling (see barca at home 2-1). vermaelen might be better at scoring, but koscielny is the better defender. vertonghen would not walk into our team either. he may seem amazing, in the dutch league, where previously the best striker has been lukaku, who never starts for chelsea. he would be a good buy, but my first 11 would still be vermaelen and koscielny at CB, with vermaelen the first to go if vertonghen is as amazing as u seem to think he is. another thing to consider, i believe wenger has even come out and said that he doesn't like to left footed players at CB. well, vermaelen is a leftie, and so is vertonghen...
Drudeboy - I agree Wilshere is a dribbler but Wenger hasn't been playing him that way. He is a fantastic dribbler. I agree with you that Kos has been a better defender than Vermaelen.
Cripes this exploded since I last looked at it. I'll leave the rest of you to discuss the merits of midfield as we all have differing views and they're giving me a headache with the possibilities (probably Wenger too!). What I'll say in my defence to my Baines comments is that I don't dislike Gibbs, I just don't trust him. For me, defence is the one position where you need to have a cohesive unit. I don't think we'll ever get that with Kieran constantly picking up injuries. You can get away with injuries a bit easier if you play up fron or in midfield but your back line needs to play together week in, week out. I know we have Santos but I'm yet to be convinced by him yet. I want to build from the back and I can only see a player of Baines' calibre strengthening us. I don't for one minute think we'll get anyone there mind.
Well your right about that Jenson but it's also our lack of balance across our back four that is problematic. In the last two years we conceded a staggering 87 league goals. In 2009 before selling off Toure we conceded 39 goals to which Wenger said: '39 is too many if we want to win the league'. Since then we have conceded 44 and 43 this term (with three games to go) The issue is that we have no regular left back and neither Koscielney or Mertesacker are truely 'TOP CLASS'. Mertesacker lacks pace and technical abilty while Koscielney lacks size, upper body strength and is constantly caught too far up the pitch. I posted some stats earlier which indicate our defence concedes less goals when Vermaelen is playing. (so for me he's our only Top Class CB) Also fans are too quick to blame our style of play or lack of a holding player when soo many teams have been successful using simular stategies. (Our current midfield actually defends pretty damn well: Rosicky Arteta and Song can all tackle and are all very hardworking) Sometimes its best to evaluate your players objectively and I am confident if we added a regular left back and the likes of Hummels/Vertonghen to our back line we would be closer to the title.
TheBear - name some of these "many" teams that have done well using similar strategies. Any team that is defensively sound will have a mean defence or someone who screens the defence very well. We have neither .. so we haemorrhage goals.
disagree again the bear. koscielny is top class. it is vermaelen who is caught up field too often. and koscielny has much better upper body strength than vermaelen. don't think we NEED hummels or vertonghen, but i wouldn't mind having one of them just in case, although they would have to be content on the bench for long periods.
The players arn't the problem, individually they are class, Kossy 100% tackling record for a year and for his first handfull of games in england, vermalean, had some injuries and made a few problems but when hes good he's solid, mertesaker lacks pace and strength/knowledge of the physicallity of the english game but class and will get better Djourou.....covers himself in mango butter... Put Kossy in Uniteds team and chances are they would of beat Barca the problem is the system, all out attack including defenders, thus meaning our main defence is the last ditch style Put Vidic when he was fit and class, terry from a few years ago, etc and we'd still be defensivly suspect
djourou is actually decent. most of his terrible games came when he was put at RB. at CB he's fairly solid, plus he's fast, tall and strong, so a good asset as 4th choice really
You keep bringing this up, and I'm going to say one thing: if Koscielny isn't top class, neither is Vermaelen... because there is no way in hell Vermaelen has demonstrated that he is significantly better than Koscielny over the last 2 years. If he was a bit better he was definitely not by a margin that would make him "Top Class" and Koscielny not. Do i have to explain how flawed that logic is? If Koscielny has played in more games with different CB partners how are we to judge him then? If in Vermaelen's absence he was paired with a 6ft6 german (on his first year in the EPL) would it be fair to compare "goals conceded" in such a simplistic way? When Vermaelen has played CB he's started alongside Kos for the majority of those games, of course our stats will be better when those two play together. Vermaelen is a very strong character, hard-working and has qualities that make him a fan favorite... but there's never been a player that's gotten away with more defensive 'crimes' with 0 fan backlash than this guy. Anyone who thinks Vermaelen has been better than Kos this season should remove their fanboy goggles IMO.
I didn't say Walcott was worth 40M, I said his replacement would be worth 40M. Do I need to explain this to you in more detail?
Just as a matter of interest, with which homegrown player would you replace Walcott, or which foreign player from our regular squad would you get rid of?
