I think it goes without saying, he's our best defender at the moment, I don't understand why he was benched today, I would've have started him today, because I knew Chelsea would pose a threat from set pieces, if we were going to bench Merte, it should have been for the mid-week game.
Agreed, he's been top quality this season, easily our best CB so far. His performance against City was one of the best individual performances from an arsenal defender that i've seen for a very long time. Unless you believe the daily mail match report, which called him crap and said he gives you cancer.
Before the "hindsight" crew come in, it was obvious to everyone that Mert should've started. It makes no sense for him to be on the bench. Playing a physical team like Chelsea demands a player of his stature and caliber. I really would like to understand Wenger's reasoning behind this. So many times in the past, Verm and Kos simply do not gel together in such vital games. We could've won this game had it not been for those soft soft freekicks we conceded, in spite of us losing Diaby.
Got to agree with this. We should have started with Mert. We really struggled on set pieces when Diaby went off and to be honest Kos didn't have his best game.
I think AW thought that Chelsea lost their physical edge and that they'd play a quicker game. A mistake on his part. I'd have continued with Verm and Mert, and I hope AW has learnt his mistake.
That's technically correct, Chelsea have lost a lot of their physical edge, and do play a quicker game, but they still have the players who can cause you trouble from set pieces, and I'd say they're still a team that does rely on punishing teams from set pieces, they have the players for that, the likes of Torres, Terry, Ivanovic, Luiz, and Cahill (didn't start) are all threatening from set piece positions.
Had in my starting line-up before the game as you can see in the match thread. He is our best defender, ****ing play him.
If anything, I think it's TV who should've been rested, Kosh didn't look good, but neither did TV, TV looked off the pace, I don't think he was fully fit for the game, and still think he's suffering the effects of the bad virus he had last week. And even having said that, Merte and Kosh did well together against City, so why break that up for another big game? Should've just kept those 2 together, give TV a few more days to recover from his virus, and bring him back into the team for our mid week game, or our derby VS West Ham next week, basically, all in all, Wenger got the Central Defence completely wrong today, and it's cost us.
Of course its easy to be wise after the event but i could see no reason to change a back 4 thats unbeaten,i hope we do learn from this and not try to out think ourselfs when picking a team to suit the opposition. Still think Koscielny is a great defender but first prem game of the season against Chelsea not so sure.
Absolutely. Vermaelen is our captain he's vocal and a leader to the whole team. He is also better than Kos in the air. - therefore he keeps his place. But I agree in terms of defending Mertesacker is the boss. Koscileney is a good player but an average defender. As I stated on the other thread. We've conceded 3 in 2 with Koscileny and 3 in 6 with Mertesacker.
Completely ignoring the fact that there are 4 other players who play I'm defense and blaming all those goals conceded on 1 guy. Kos hasn't played 3 games this season btw and pre-season and last-season don't count.
You'll know I'm not one to knock our players, but Koscielney actually had a few moments against City where he looked shakey, but his goal meant that nobody really pulled him up on it. But he could have easily given away a pen, and his bad clearance at the end could have cost us the game. I like Koscielney, but at the moment, Mertesacker is ahead of him and should start in his place.
He's way better than average, that's just a silly knee jerk reaction. I just think that we need to start the players who are in the best form.
What like Tevez,Auguro and Silva did last Sunday? Please. Mertesacker is one of the most intelligent defenders going around.
