The best CB in the Premier League

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Relax people, ignore WUM's.

Look at it from this standpoint:
Your a Premier League manager and you can have a pick of ANY defender in the league, who would you choose? I reckon David Luiz.

David Luiz is not a great defender, he is a decent ball player and good in the air but he is reckless and doesn't have much defensive awareness and positional ability.
 
Kamran, whilst I do think Koscielny, bar his multiple errors at the start of the season and the lack of communication in the Carling Cup final in the mix-up with Szczsney, is a very good defender and whilst I do think he could be one of the best defenders in the Premier League in years to come, I think calling him the best CB in the Premier League at the moment is a bit of an overstatement. I would rate Vidic, Ferdinand, Vermaelen, Djourou, Terry, (reluctant to say this) Gallas, Huth, Dunne, Heitinga, Distin, Craddock, Coloccini, Steven Taylor, Kompany, Touré, and Hangeland *gasps* higher than Koscielny. Of course, you do need to take into account that he'd only spent one season in the top tier of French football and he needed time to habituate to the puissance of the Premier League, however, that still doesn't make the mistakes he made any less unacceptable than they already were. It's feasible for him to become one of the league's best cb's because he's got the proficiency and efficacy, but he's still needs to work up on his technique and reactions before he can become one of the best. But for his first season in Premier League football, he has done very well and will only improve dramatically, as he gets used to it. Bearing in mind he doesn't suffer any fatal injuries!

I've never disagreed with you more Samir. Some of the names you mentioned are not even good enough to play for our reserves.

And people over exaggerate about the number of mistakes Koscielny has made. I mean, the only mistakes I remember him making are against Bolton in one of his first games for the club and in the CC final where the miscommunication between him and Szczesny occurred.
 
Relax people, ignore WUM's.

Look at it from this standpoint:
Your a Premier League manager and you can have a pick of ANY defender in the league, who would you choose? I reckon David Luiz.

Vidic, though he does make some bad errors at times (i.e. commiting a foul when he's the last man).
 
What about him getting sent off in against Liverpool? Or when he was easily knocked aside by Diouf against blackburn and they scored from it. Or when he got sent off against Newcastle? You can't just sweep his mistakes under the carpet. I don't want to be harsh on the guy because he looks to have the makings of a very good CB but saying he is the best in the league is, quite frankly ridiculous.
 
What about him getting sent off in against Liverpool? Or when he was easily knocked aside by Diouf against blackburn and they scored from it. Or when he got sent off against Newcastle? You can't just sweep his mistakes under the carpet. I don't want to be harsh on the guy because he looks to have the makings of a very good CB but saying he is the best in the league is, quite frankly ridiculous.

Wtf, getting sent off isn't making a mistake. Especially when you haven't done anything wrong to warrant a red card. Can you imagine how many times Vidic would be sent off every season if he actually received a red card whenever he deserved one? Giving away penalties, getting sent off and getting booked are is all part of being a defender (to an extent, of course). Vidic has made more mistakes than Koscielny this season - SUPER FACT.
 
Kos is good but not the best - TV is the best at arsenal atm but thats not to say kos wont improve and continue to make strides this season - but if i was to choose to have any defender in the premier league it would be Vidic :)
 
Like who?



Kamran, with all due respect, mate, I do think you are showing too much chauvinism towards Koscielny. Don't get me wrong - he has been pretty good for us, but I do not think he's this ''world-class'' player which you surmise him to be. He's made several errors:

- Third game of the season, away at Blackburn, where he was easily outmuscled by El-Hadji Diouf and he passed it to Biram Diouf who had a tap in. Should have been stronger.

- Against West Brom at The Emirates, for Odemwingie's opener, Thomas's low cross wasn't looking too dangerous and Koscielny did not man mark Odemwingie. He saw Odemwingie in the box, and even had a quick glance at the Nigerian's positioning, but he did very little to prevent him from making the run. In fact, his reactions were well too late. In his defense though, it was as much as our entire defence's fault as much as Koscielny, in particular. Everyone was focused on the ball but didn't keep an eye on the goal threats. Abysmal defending.

http://www.caughtoffside.com/2010/0...mwich-albion-premier-league-highlights-video/

- For Jara's goal, Kosicelny, again, stood there and did not close the man down. He was static and just allowed Jara to shoot. It was mainly Almunia's fault, but there's no way in hell that a player should be allowed that much time and space to shoot.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/tv-online-arsenal-v-w.b.a.-highlights; watch from 0:22

It's no wonder he got subbed off after the second goal! He was having a torrid time!

- Against Spurs, he committed himself too far forward and didn't have the speed to get back and defend. Bale took advantage of our complacency and got Spurs back into the game.

- Kosicelny made a couple of errors in the 4-4 draw against Newcastle as well, if my memory serves me correct. It was also down to partial, incompetent refereeing, but his inexperience was exposed when he panicked frantically and recklessly put his leg through Best's, for one of their penalties.

- When Taylor Fletcher scored against us at Bloomfield Road, Koscielny was out of position and there was a gap in our defence, which helped contribute towards the goal. It got Blackpool back in the game.

- There was obviously the vital mistake at Bolton, which you know about, purely down to slow reactions.

And to be honest Kamran, these are just the mistakes he made which turned out to be a (minor or major) factor in why some of our results weren't as comfortable as they should have been. There's been some other mistakes he's made, which haven't been as huge, but his lack of spatial awareness, his positioning at times, rash challenges, and his nervousness on the ball (occasionally) is worrying. He isn't solid enough, for my liking - especially from set-pieces. He can still become an excellent defender, but he needs a lot of hard work and effort to ensure that he doesn't make these mistakes again.

He did improve a lot towards the end of the season, though. So let's hope he'll be a much better player next season!

Craddock, Taylor, Distin, Coloccini etc.

All CBs make errors Samir. Most of the 'world class' CBs in the league made more errors than Koscielny last season.

The goal we conceded against Blackburn was NOT his fault. He could've done better, but it wasn't his fault. If you look carefully, you will see that Sagna was nowhere to be seen. He's our RB so he should be there dealing with Diouf (the dickhead one) while Kossy marks the other Diouf.

And the same goes for the WBA game. Sagna got beaten too easily by Jerome Thomas down the right, so Koscielny couldn't get to the ball on time because he wasn't expecting Sagna to be beaten so easily. As for the second goal, well I don't have much to say. Like you said, Almunia should be dealing with that regardless of if Koscielny allows Jara to shoot or not. And as far as I can remember, I think he got taken off because we were 3-0 down and we needed to take off a defender and attack more. I may be wrong, though.

And you can't blame him for going forward and not making it back on time against Spurs. When defenders go forward for set pieces, some of the shorter players who are useless at causing problems in the opposition team's area stay back to prevent the team from conceding from a counter attack, so that definitely wasn't his fault. If it was his fault, then Vermaelen has cost us over 10 goals just by going forward for set pieces and not making it back on time.

And the other two were not major errors, but he could've done better to prevent them.

My point is Samir, Vermaelen made more mistakes than him in his debut season, but he didn't get criticized half as much because he chipped in with a few goals. Vermaelen was also responsible for at least 3 of the 6 goals we conceded against Barcelona not last season but the season before. He was also poor against teams like Man and Chelsea. Koscielny has been the complete opposite. He's been brilliant and I mean absolutely brilliant in the big games, but he's struggled in a few games against the lesser sides.

I love Vermaelen as well, but imo Koscielny is our best CB.

I obviously don't really think he's the best CB in the league, but I think he's up there with the best. I said he was the best just to get people to realise what a quality defender he is.
 
Wtf, getting sent off isn't making a mistake. Especially when you haven't done anything wrong to warrant a red card. Can you imagine how many times Vidic would be sent off every season if he actually received a red card whenever he deserved one? Giving away penalties, getting sent off and getting booked are is all part of being a defender (to an extent, of course). Vidic has made more mistakes than Koscielny this season - SUPER FACT.

No, getting sent off is definitely a mistake. When he got sent off against Newcastle it was because he got beaten for pace and then brought Ranger down. You can't say that is not his fault.
 
No, getting sent off is definitely a mistake. When he got sent off against Newcastle it was because he got beaten for pace and then brought Ranger down. You can't say that is not his fault.

He got beaten for pace so he brought Ranger down. So he took one for the team. If he didn't bring Ranger down, we would've gone two down. How many times have we seen Vidic do that over the years?
 
But he shouldn't have been in the position to be sent off, he should have stopped the danger before it came to that! How often do you see truely world class players like Thiago Silva or Puyol scrambling back after a (pretty average in Ranger's case) striker has gone past them?
 
But he shouldn't have been in the position to be sent off, he should have stopped the danger before it came to that! How often do you see truely world class players like Thiago Silva or Puyol scrambling back after a (pretty average in Ranger's case) striker has gone past them?

He was the one of the last players back, he didn't have a choice. He took one for the team ffs. Every defender has been in that position. Vidic does it every season, the only difference is he gets away with it most of the time.
 
There are a quite a few centrebacks who I would rate higher than Koscielny: Vidic, Vermaelen, Ferdinand, Samba, Terry, Alex, Toure (Kolo), Cahill and some others. He is still decent though, not the best but for a first season in the EPL, he's not made a bad start.