Torreria is an arsenal player!

Makelele was that height, never a problem.

 

He’s not the sort of player you’re going to try and man mark Giroud at a corner with. But other than that, his height is not a problem.

 

If we have enough other tall players at set pieces (we do), we will be fine.

 

You have to look at the whole team when assessing these things.

Look at the teams Makelele was successful with:

France:
Vieira 6'3, Blanc 6'4, Desailly 6'1, Petite 6'1, Henry 6'2, Thuram 6'2, Trezeguet 6'2, Zidane 6'1 etc..
Chelsea:
John Terry 6'3, Alex 6'4, Didier Drogba 6'3, R Carvalho 6'2, Frank Lampard 6'1, Gudjohsson 6'1 etc..

You can have small players but you just dont want to a side that cant cope physically. In the Premierleague we still get your Allardyce's/ Hugh's/Pulis etc.. and the refs allow for a greater degree of contact than in say Spain. Therefore physicality (physical strength, height at set pieces etc..) matters.

My main concern is that our team will get bullied.
Mustafi is a tiny centreback, Koscielny is rather lightweight (and poor in the air) and now we have added a 5'6 65kg midfielder to an already soft side.

Now Sokratis coming in should help and Lichsteiner is tough as old boots, Kolasinac may come into the side also.
Hopefully the new French midfielder will make a decent impact as well.

 

Yeah that was my feeling on the other thread. If we get other tall players it shouldn't be much of an issue but we do need some height and power. I am sure they are aware of this.

 

Yeah - would have loved an Nzonzi type or a Koulibaly coming in. But I think the squad is in a better place than last Season for sure.

 

More importantly the club as a whole is in a better place than last season for sure.

 

It all remains to be seen how it will pan out, but it looks good so far. Have to give a lot of credit to Ivan Gazidis here, he's managed to grab this club by the scruff of the neck and make wholesale changes from top to bottom. The new set up looks good and the business in the transfer window was very encouraging

 

Have to say it's good to see Gazidis get off his arse and get properly stuck in rather than ride the Wenger wave. What's happened has happened, what matters is the management is trying to put things right now. So far we are heading in the right direction. Don't care if we win nothing in a few years, as long as we show significant improvement, then i'm happy with that.