CB situation

Long term do we need to rebuild our centre half situation in order to challenge the top clubs ?
i know defending is something which the entire team has to do and tactics play a big part but the individuals are also crucial.When you look at it, i don't think we have ever replaced Sol Campbell as a world class CB and a leader. Since he left we have signed the likes of Gallas, Vermaelen, Squillaci, Silvestre, Koscielny, Mertesacker as centre halves

Mertesacker and Koscielny are good centre halves but they are not world class to be fair, they have their flaws which opponents look to exploit every time we play. if you look at all the elite clubs for example they all have at least one world class centre half. Bayern have Benatia or Boateng, PSG have Thiago, Chelsea have Terry, while City have Kompany.

The next centre half we sign needs to be more than a squad filler, needs to be someone who is better than Koscielny and Mertesacker.

Nah Koscielny is world class. Sure he concedes penalties and get red cards but which WC CB doesn't make mistakes or has brain fart moments? Thiago Silva, erm and other supposed WC CBs all make mistakes. This isn't the era of Nesta, Maldini, Tony Adams etc. Kompany is not any better than Koscielny for example.

As for OP, completely agree with your main point. And it's not for long term but is an immediate concern. We need a CB who can push Mertesacker out. As you said, someone better than what we have. Mertesacker is a great leader and I am sure he will understand that his prime is gone and will stay to help out the team. Unless he wants to return to bundesliga. We have no WC talent for CB either so it's a must we go out and take some gamble.

We should have gone for Zouma.

We don't necessarily need a world class CB because we already got one in Koscielny. Mertesacker has been a very good partner for him aswell.

As for a young CB, did you forget we signed Chambers this summer? He has been amazing this year so far as a CB, that's our CB for the future.

All we need is a CB who is around the same level as Mertesacker and accepts a 3rd choice role with the chance to start if he plays well.

And the most obvious one is Wenger getting a grip on how to perform defensively as a team, you can have the best CB's in the world and concede a shit load of goals if there's no organisation as a team defensively.

Koscielny is an excellent centre half, he is the best one at the club but put him under pressure and he guarantees you a few penalties and red cards. Mertesacker's lack of pace and mobility is exploited every time we play top teams. Last season we conceded 6 against City, Chelsea and 5 against Liverpool which tells you something.

Arsene has neglected the CB position for too long in my opinion, apart from Chambers the CB we have signed all cost 10 million or 6 million even Chambers was seen as a right back when we initially signed him. Chambers will need at least two season to establish himself as a centre half, he is still learning the position. We need a proper one who will displace either Mert or Koscielny, if we don't then we will end up with a Silvestre or Squillaci and keep hoping to sign yet another CB. We missed the boat big time with Garay in my opinion, he was available at a good price.

EL Patron wrote: Mertesacker's lack of pace and mobility is exploited every time we play top teams. Last season we conceded 6 against City, Chelsea and 5 against Liverpool which tells you something.

How many of those were because of Mertesacker? And how many times have his long legs bailed us out, in comparison?

After 2 years of holding the backline together, I am surprised to still see people point out his lack of pace/mobility. Granted, he is not world class in your list, but he is a bloody damn good CB and credit where it is due please.

We've spent over 50m on our CBs and I would take Merte and Kos over all of them (except maybe Ilori).

Sometimes you think there's better out there when in reality CB situation is really weak all over Europe.

Yeah because putting all these other "world class" CB's under constant pressure won't force them into mistakes in big games.

Likes of Boateng and Benatia barely have to do anything in 90 minutes other than win headers against one striker because of Pep Guardiola's pressing while Koscielny is constantly forced into one on one situations because of the lack of protection he gets from anyone other than Mertesacker, Terry's is hardly any faster than Mertesacker but he doesn't have to cover for our midfielders mistakes nearly as much as Mertesacker and I can go on the same for pretty much most big clubs compared to us.

Our problem is WENGER, not individuals. We have a very good squad, certainly good enough to atleast challenge Chelsea and City but Wenger isn't tactically as good as neither Mourinho and Pellegrini. It's becoming really tiring that we look at individuals when the constant for years has been Wenger and nothing has changed.

If your two centre backs don't get the right protection from the fullbacks and midfield, then how good they are doesn't mean an awful lot. They can't be everywhere and do everything.

Urban is spot on about the entire team's defending. You only have to go back to last season, or the tail end of the season before that, to see what a great partnership Mertesacker and Koscielny had, and how good the protection they got was. Mertesacker's lack of mobility and Koscielny's rashness didn't stop that team from amassing the most clean sheets in the league last season.

If there is a problem at centre back, it's depth. We haven't replaced Vermaelen. If we get a centre back on the same level as Vermaelen - and let's not forget, an in-form Vermaelen was a more than decent centre back - and sort out the team's defending, we'll be fine.

As it is, you could put Hummels or Benatia or Silva in our backline and it wouldn't make things a whole lot better.

Koscielny is very good, WC, I don't know about that, but he is good and I think we should find the right partner for him because Mertesacker isn't that imo.

Your CB partnership of Merte and Koscielny were outstanding last season by all measures.
Now Koscielny is injured and Mertesacker is maybe in bad form, I guess (didn't see your games).
So I can only repeat what others have said, your problem is not quality but depth.
If Chambers was 3rd CB first and foremost he would play for Koscielny instead of for Debuchy.
Bottom line is, Hayden and Bellerin are used to justify you have enough players, but Wenger effectively does not trust them to play in the league.
That means you have either only 2 CBs, or 3 CBs but no backup RB. Either way, it's clearly much too few. Think what would happen if you had 3 CBs injured like Man Utd lol.

Also, I also can only repeat that the overall main problem is the lacklustre defensive discipline of your midfield and forward players, and the unbalanced set up by Wenger.
No CB in the world will look good if forwards can run at them with space to combine with wingers.

It's Wenger, he's stubborn like that, but he will also somehow manage it lol. He's always done that, and you always were alright in the end.
Think about it this way, better to have your usual bad spell now than in February.

Sorry for invading your space again, I'm just bored by German NT and I'm also officially rooting for you to win the league.

"Sorry for invading your space again"
You're like the Arsenal section's main contributor

It's always good to get an outside perspective on things, just to cut through the usual doom and gloom here.

Mertesacker's form this year hasn't been good. It's nothing to do with his pace, and more to do with being too weak on aerial challenges. Abel Hernandez and Alex Mitrovic both got the better of him in the air and scored goals when, really, they shouldn't have done. I know he's not the most dominant of centre backs on his best day, but physically he looks off the pace a bit.

Which probably shouldn't be surprising. He played a lot of games last season, went to the World Cup, didn't have a pre-season and was put straight back into the starting eleven as soon as he was available.

Well what can I say, I like it here, that's because other people's misery makes me feel good.
I also gives me opportunity to be patronizing, which I love as well.

DM DM DM until we fix that giant hole, I'm ok with some back up for sacker, Kos. WC CB is hard to come by, Manolas who rejected us got ripped a new one several times this season, Vidic got skinned repeatedly as well, just some perpective.

Hapless_Hans wrote:
It's Wenger, he's stubborn like that, but he will also somehow manage it lol. He's always done that, and you always were alright in the end.
Think about it this way, better to have your usual bad spell now than in February.

Sorry for invading your space again, I'm just bored by German NT and I'm also officially rooting for you to win the league.

Yeah, glass half full about AW there.
Also, I was going to say something nice about the show of support, but then I read this:

Hapless_Hans wrote:Well what can I say, I like it here, that's because other people's misery makes me feel good.
I also gives me opportunity to be patronizing, which I love as well.

You're such a bitch

IMO Koscielny is an incredible CB. World class no doubt.

Have wanted him at Barca for some time now.

We need 2 more CBs and a World class DM. I would rather we give younger players a chance and spend big on DM. Mertesacker is getting slower and slower, Arteta cant even run and Flamini is a clown running around. I have no faith in "the Stubborn” will not address the problems.

I would rather we spend most of the money on buying right tactics, and learning when to make the substitutions.

apart from the obvious stupidity of such a poll (who were the people asked etc lol), let's stop and think for a minute about the word "frustrating".
Because you can only be frustrated when you could reasonably have expected a better outcome.
So while you may be frustrated by Wenger for dissapointing your expectations, don't forget that at the same time it's due to his work that you have these expectations in the first place.

Hapless_Hans wrote:apart from the obvious stupidity of such a poll (who were the people asked etc lol), let's stop and think for a minute about the word "frustrating".
Because you can only be frustrated when you could reasonably have expected a better outcome.
So while you may be frustrated by Wenger for dissapointing your expectations, don't forget that at the same time it's due to his work that you have these expectations in the first place.

What work? something he may have don 20 years ago? it was David Dean not Wenger. Back then it was Arsenal vs United and when more competition came around and Wenger created the Top4 Trophy. People forget how much Dean did for Arsenal. These shortcomings are a clear reflection of our coach’s poor mental capacity to move this club forward. My exception from Wneger is very low, the solution to Arsenal is not Wenger out but the fans out, no more attending games and paying the highest tickets to watch every player out of position.

Hapless_Hans wrote:apart from the obvious stupidity of such a poll (who were the people asked etc lol), let's stop and think for a minute about the word "frustrating".
Because you can only be frustrated when you could reasonably have expected a better outcome.
So while you may be frustrated by Wenger for dissapointing your expectations, don't forget that at the same time it's due to his work that you have these expectations in the first place.

U mean his work 10 years ago cause now fans look at roster, quality of players on the pitch, the depth, the manager, transfer fee, the highest ticket price to build their own expectation. If u put Steve Bould, De Boer, Pep, LVG in charge, we would have the same expectation, even more so.

Credit where it is due. Don't be foolish in your judgement.

Am I frustrated with AW? Yes. But that doesn't take away what he has done for the club in the pre-Emirates era as well as during the stadium-debt period.

You have a new stadium and a club able to compete (at least theoretically) with opulent clubs - not because David Dean had his way about us not building a stadium and moving instead to Wembley or something.

It's amazing how easily people have forgotten what lead to him being ousted and selling his shares to Usmanov. Dein was good while he was there (like I said, credit where it is due), but his exit was no bed of roses. And don't forget the number of 'stars' who departed who had Darren Dein as their agent.

You guys need to watch videos of pre-AW Arsenal to really understand how he transformed this club. '1-0 to the Arsenal' and 'Boring, boring Arsenal' are not the things you would have started supporting.

@Hans - Props to you mate. Like Jay said, it helps to have some outside-in view, when people here are so frustratingly un-objective, mix up issues and misdirect their qualms.

sri, that's not meant to tell people how to feel. I don't know what I'd do as a Arsenal fan, but I'd surely be frustrated and mad as hell too right now lol.
I'm just genuinely interested in this, because it's really tricky.

We just need depth.

kos and mert are class. But they look worse than they are because they are run into the ground. They both play until they get injured. Thats the extent of our rotating

Right now, the number of circumstances out of Wenger's control is now fewer than it was during that nine year period without a trophy. We can excuse Wenger for most of that period because he didn't have the resources and lost key players every season.

Now that we have more money he's not got a reason to not fill the holes in his squad, and with a better squad there's not many reasons why the team shouldn't be doing better at the moment. It's such blatant mismanagement that it's difficult to have any confidence that the problem will be fixed. That may be the "glass half empty" view of things, but we've been in this situation enough times in the past to know how these things tend to go.

I don't think it's unreasonable for fans to expect better after last season. The poor end to our league season last year aside, we did make some progress and left a good foundation to build off, so understandably the fact we've gone backwards has left us questioning whether it was right for the manager to stay on and whether that FA Cup win was a good time to get some fresh leadership into the club.

The season is long and things could well improve, but it is tough to be patient when what you're seeing on a weekly basis isn't encouraging.

+1 Jay.