Rival watch
- Thread starter Spurlock
- Start date
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I think he was an unused sub
Sure as **** didn't take a penalty.
I doubt that he'd hit the target more than 3/10 from 12 yards...and I really like the bloke.
He's taken 18 career penalties and scored 11, apparently: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fer...r/35564/saison_id//wettbewerb_id//plus/1#tore
Not great, is it? Hasn't taken one since 2012, either.
I'm actually surprised he was that successful. Whilst I'm only about an inch shorter than him, I feel that I was a lot more coordinated and fluid in my movement as a young man. He moves like I do now...and I'm nearly 60.
I never expected him to strike the ball cleanly and hit the back of the net. Did he ever score a goal from outside the box?
I didn't understand how he'd played for so many good clubs and won the silverware he has. If you hadn't watched Luiz play before, and just looked at his medals alone, you'd think he was one of the best players in Europe.
Despite the narrative about Luiz circulated by most football lovers, Chelsea fans I've spoken to are adamant he was never this bad for them. They say he was instrumental in all 3 of their European cup finals in recent years, as well as their 2016/17 season and being a general big-game player. I do think part of this is because he was surrounded by better players at Chelsea and he had more protection e.g. in their title-winning season under Antonio Conte, he played in a back 3, which meant there was a spare centre-half for cover and he had a Kante-Matic pivot in front of him.
I've not fact checked this but I was told he (somewhat surprisingly) only had 1 red card in 7 years at Chelsea. He's had 2 in less than a year with us. Maybe age is catching up with him, maybe the system we play exposes him too often, maybe our team as a whole doesn't offer enough cohesion as a defensive unit - however, he has made far too many judgement calls that end up being the wrong decision. And it's come at the expense of Arsenal.
I'm under no illusions his little 'mea culpa' in the post-match interview was a way of him putting public pressure on Raul & Vinai to extend his contract. Arteta may want to keep him, but we'd be fools to let it happen.
he's always been prone to brain farts and his decision making off. However he's had some big injuries and he's 33, a time where players slow down a lot nowadays (just look at Jan who is always the same age). He was always pretty athletic and physical which got him out of trouble with some decent partners where if he made a an error, someone could probably help sweep up his mess. So coupled with his poor decision making and father time, it's just going to get worse. He's passionate, and apparantly quite good in the changing room and a leader (the impression i got) and his passing used to be excellent (it's gone really down hill the past few years, beginning at chelsea) and he could come up with big goals (although he gets beaten in the air too much for my liking when up against another physical striker).
Thing is though, as well as his game deteriorating, he's also at arsenal, probably the worse team for exposing a defence (lets face it, xhaka, guendozi and ceballos are not great defensively with guendozi being the best of a bad bunch because he can run even though he lacks the positional nous). Torreira is your best DM so no idea where he is, Tierney is highly rated but untested, Bellerin is decent but plays really high up the field and mustafi has always been a problem. This has been an issue all the way back to the wenger days.
Luiz was a big part of the teams that won the champions league (he was great in the final from what i remember) and a big component for conte in our title winning season (no idea why he was dropped/fell out with conte the next season but apparantly he was "injured"). Not a perfect defender, can be great or poor on a day but definitely was worthy of a challenging team back in the day (not suitable nowadays).
saying that though, we definitely mugged PSG when we sold him for 50m. I was shocked we got that amount which i guess explains it all even though he was one of my favourite players (not necessarily because of his john terry defending)
I've often asked myself that question too. Mistakes aside he's not a terrible player but he's also not an elite defender either, yet his CV would imply he's not far from the Ramos'/ Chiellini's/ Silva's of the world. I bet you could ask the majority of semi-knowledgeable fans to name the top 10, maybe even 15 best CBs in Europe over say a 5 year period and I'd be amazed if Luiz makes many lists. Yet with league titles in 3 different countries, CL, 2x ELs, multiple domestic cups in various countries plus the Confederations Cup with Brazil... From a stat point alone you'd sound crazy if you excluded him.
"Football, funny ol' game".
I've never thought he was a central defender, his position has always been midfield - too skillful and too accident prone for central defence.
Foyth is a similar player right now, albeit less physically strong and a lot less of a twat.
I would say he's in that mix of very good defenders who aren't elite. But how many elite defenders have there really been in the last ten years (looking at your list thats a high bar set!).
I would say he's similar to Ramos in the terms of brain farts although Ramos certainly is a better defender just because of his leadership and his ability to recover with his speed (he's much faster than luiz) but in that respect i think they are both similar types of defenders.
Off the top of my head
Jan
Kompany
Ramos
Pique
Bonnuci
Godin
do you include the likes of Pique, Terry etc who were playing for 3 or 4 years at the peak of this decade?
Notable absentees
(not seen enough of silva and hes only been doing it with PSG)
(there was a period i really rated Toby as one of the best but in body of work, it's below luiz i think pretty similar i would rate them both similar in terms of level, with toby the better defender, luiz better at other things)
VVD right now is the best defender but its only been the past 2 years
we tried him as a DM. I didn't really like him there. He was okay but he's someone who likes to take a few touches before passing it off. He's not someone to dictate a tempo, he's solid enough but i don't think amazing for positioning so isn't someone whos always winning the ball (he also gets attracted to the ball so may vacate his DM spot) and one of his best attributes was his long pass, which he can't really do as a DM as normally you get pressed pretty quickly. You are right though, he is quite accident prone for a Central Defender
Yeah, as I said, I do think part of the reason why he's not been a success at Arsenal (aside from age) is the system we play. It doesn't suit him.
As you've mentioned, there is no security provided by our midfield. Torreira's injured, but a midfield of Xhaka, Guendouzi and Willock lacks the athleticism, spatial awareness, stamina and physicality to give defensive stability in the middle of the park. Whether we're under pressure from defending deep, facing a counter attack or the opposition are looking to transition from defence to attack with speed, this midfield will not fulfil their duties adequately. Which means our defence is even more exposed.
However, unforced errors like the one leading to Sterling's opener, you can't legislate for things like that.
The worst thing about Luiz is that his prominence led to a rise of ball-playing centre backs who are really not that good at playing with the ball at their feet
There's plenty of CBs who can do it, with Verts an obvious example, but then you look at John Stones who tries to play like Luiz, but what he actually does is look like that one time on PES you thought your CB would drive through the opponent midfield to set up a goal and instead got easily dispossessed and left a gaping hole in the back line which the opposition were grateful for
Yeah I'd include some of the guys that have recently retired or aged, it'd probably be fairer to Luiz to maybe extend it to something like a 7 or 8 year period because he's declined in recent years which may cloud judgement but there's still a fair few defenders (in my opinion) that I rate above him based on individual talent:
Ramos
Godin
Terry
Varane
Silva
Chiellini
Bonucci
Hummels
Kompany
Pique
That's a solid 10 that I think most would definitely pick over Luiz. There's also others that I'd personally pick that some may/ may not agree with:
Van Dijk - to be fair I'd say definitely pick but he's not been at the top as long as others
Vertonghen - If Spurs in general had been successful he and Toby would be more highly regarded, especially Jan
Alderweireld
Barzagli - gets slept on a lot but he was instrumental in that back three with Chiellini and Bonucci
Koulibaly - strong argument to say he's been just as good as Chiellini/ Bonucci, just obviously not as successful
Marquinhos - he's like the Brazilian Varane, been around for ages and still relatively young lol
Luiz would then roughly come after these for me.
So you are saying he is in your top 20 centre halves over the last several years? I'd have any of the Chelsea centre halves that regularly dug him out of holes (Rudiger, Cahill, Zouma, Christiansen), Burnley have a couple that I would rather have. Laporte is as good as any on your list
Cahill’s a good shout, forgotten him.
Christiansen no way. Zouma is hit and miss. I think Laporte is quality but he hasn’t been at the top for that long. If we based it on the last 2-3 years then 100% but 7 or 8 years I’d probably just be being biased against Luiz because of his Chelsea roots. Same goes for Rudiger, he hasn’t been at the top of the game for 7 or 8 years.
Mouser Twitter is going to be entertaining, that's for sure...