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.
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.
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
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.
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?
Possibly the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a defender...Stephen Carr managed to catch up with Nile Ranger!
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.
