It was a bit of a surprise to most Arsenal fans to see the way the Gunners lined up in the away game at Liverpool on Sunday. We already knew that Arsene Wenger would not be able to call on the best defender at the club, Laurent Koscielny, and that turned out to be just as damaging as we feared.
We also knew that Wenger has played both left and right backs as covering central defenders this season, with varied results, but with the young and versatile Calum Chambers available again after a Premier League suspension the previous week, most of us expected the former Saint to line up alongside Per Mertesacker at the back.
I am not having a go at Debuchy here, because the French international full back did as well as we could expect and probably outperformed the big German at Anfield, but it seems to me that Chambers is the more natural centre back and Debuchy would offer more on the right.
Wenger suggested that this was done to counter the pace and trickery of Raheem Sterling, which is understandable, but against QPR I expect Chambers and Debuchy to swap places. The QPR striker Charlie Austin is on fire but he does not have the pace and quick feet of Sterling and Chambers has the strength and extra defensive solidity to cope with his threat better than our French full back.
Wenger has admitted to overplaying the 19-year old but having no choice. But I bet Chambers has loved it really and he has, largely, coped well and took everything in his stride. Another clean sheet as a central defender will do him and the club a world of good.
So Gooners, is Chambers the man to get the Gunners defending properly again?
Chambers should be getting more playing time in the right CB position. I believe it was Arsene’s plan to ease him into that role this season so he can probably take over full-time from the aging Mertesacker next season. Chambers played his best so far at right CB.
Arsenal has 34 senior players.
but rely on 10.
24 are injured or not good enough.
So what can one new player do?
play them in their best positions and i will not complain
Seriously, what’s up with Wenger and his obsession of playing players out of position??
Ozil Cazorla and arshavin had extended periods as wingers even though they are CAMs. Ramsey, wilshere and rosicky have, at some point, played in wide areas even though its clear as day that they are central players. Sanchez have been played all across the frontline, never settling down into 1 position
Arteta came as a CM and had to learn how to become a CDM. Now the obsession has spread over to the backline, with Monreal and Debuchy deployed at centreback even though they have never played there before in their entire career. Not quite sure what Wenger’s instructions were, but at certain periods during the liverpool game I saw Giroud at left wing.
Wilshere broke through for four years already and Wenger still have no idea over his best position. I could see the same happening to Chambers for the next few years. Stability in the team, especially the backline, is crucial to a team’s success (see vidic, ferdinand and terry, cahill). Its no coincidence that our best run last year came with a stable back four of gibbs, kos, BFG and sagna. Now with Wenger chopping the back four every game, either due to injuries or his ‘tactics’, its no wonder our defence is doing horribly.
While I agree largly with what you said, we do need stability and the invincible team is another example to prove what your saying about stability…
Letting a player gain experience in different positions will help a player get a more complete understanding of his role, not only from the ‘doing it’ perspective but also ‘working alongside’, this means they have a bit more understanding of what there teammates will want.
This is evident in both Gibbs and Cole, Cole started as a CF and Gibbs was a Left Winger I think, both have gone to LB and made a that position their own.
We can look at the invincible defense to find another player who was moved to defense from a DM/RB role, Kolo Toure.
Moving a player into a new role isn’t a problem, it is if the player is good enough to adapt and learn from it, Sagna is another player who played CB for us and in all honesty I had faith in him in that role as long as the players around him knew there roles good enough.
Going back to why I largly agree with you though and that is because I agree that a defense needs to be consistant, flair comes spontagiuosly and that is ok for a strike force that is fluid but at the back we need stability to allow the attacking players more freedom.
Monreal at CB baffles me, he was never the best positinal LB and he had his career to learn that role, I can only assume that Wenger seen something in training which he failed to deliver in games. I wanted to see Chambers in the middle and Bellerin play as I think it would of been a bit more stable over the period of time Debuchery and Kos was/are out.
Wenger said he played Debuchy at CB because he is good aerially. Also want to put Chambers out of the firing line as he had played too many games. Fair point, although most of us thought Chambers will move to centre back. I rate him very low as a full back to be honest.
Just gone midnight so its
Christmas morning here.
Better check to see if Santa
left any news about Jan transfers 🙂
So long as grandPer is there, our defence will remain fragile.
I luv Chambers, but I think he’d be more suited to the DM role. U do know how reckless he can be, playing him as a CB quite scares me. I think he’d make a fantastic DM.
To be very frank, there’s nothing special about Arsenal anymore. Watch that game against Liverpool again, we were like a goddamn flaccid d**k. Liverpool were a p*****y and we could give dem no action. Dead midfield. All Flamini does is clap and shout like a chorus leader in church.
I hope Wenger does the right thing in January.
re:Flamini
I know he isn’t good enough to be a starter for us week in and week out, I do think he is trying to do something which Per should be doing though and that is getting some sort of organisation in defense, to moan about that i think is wrong.
Flamini doesn’t have the pace, he hasn’t got the height and not the strongest either… but he has given us 200% since coming back and for me he is a great TEAM player, he isn’t the best and far from it but he can make a difference. We also need players who are happy being ‘backup’ which Flamini is, this can allow for younger players to grow… he knows he isn’t a spring chiken anymore and he knows that there are better players than him out there but it doesn’t stop him doing his best every time he is called upon, passion, something which some of our players tend to lack.
If you have ever played football then you will know that some players NEED to communicate as they are responsable for the teams organisation, if the other players do not listen then you HAVE TO SHOUT and do what you can to get there attention, this can come in the form of waving hands around to catch thier attention visually.
Next time you see him ‘scream and shout like a cheerleader’ just have a look at who he is shouting too and if that player is giving any attention to what Flamini is saying and what he is trying to get the player to do.
As for the Liverpool game, I believe it was the Ox who didn’t challenge Courtinho for the 1st goal? after our attack gave them the ball, not Flamini.
The 2nd goal came from that header which wasn’t Flaminis fault either…
No our CM wasn’t that strong but to pick out Flamini when The Ox had a worse game is disturbing, not saying he is poor (I rate the Ox highly) but he wasn’t fully fit. It had a impact on the game. Several players was playing below expected, picking on Flamini when the whole team should of done better is kinda pathetic.
Damn you, I really wanted to disagree with you just because it is you >.<
I can't argue though about Chambers, he does scare me at times at CB and do think that his youthfullness would be ideal for the holding role… If we had more CB.
As long as we have the ball and playing our way then I don't get so scared and this is largly down to how we press, our CB can be quite high up at times and getting a yellow outside the box isn't as bad.
Chambers scares me like how Kos use to scare me when he 1st came to us, was it the 1st game he played that he got his 1st red with us? My hope is that Chambers will be the same, quickly sort himself out so he doesn't pick up cards like a kid picks up candy.
OT, anyone want to see the impact a proper midfield enforcer has on a team ?
Southampton with Schneiderlin (26 Aug – 24 Nov) : WWWWWWLWWWWWD
Southampton w/o Schneiderlin (30 Nov – 13 Dec) : LLLL
Chelsea with Matic : P40 W29 D7 L4. Win% = 73
Chelsea w/o Matic : P10 W4 D3 L3 Win% = 40.
doesn’t really matter if wenger buys every player in the world……with his own hands, he’d still find a way to mess up the whole system and ruin the team…..don’t y’all see… its WENGER
I don’t know if the boss will accept my request to be audacious and play a gamble which I am certain will beat small team QPR neat and clear for all the 3 points that will be on stake on Friday at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal Gamble: Szczesny. Debuchy..Chambers/Ajayi..Gibbs. Flamini/Coquelin/Podolski. Sanchez/Cazola. Giroud. Summary: 4-3-2-1 playing style formation. Debuchy at RB, Chambers to pair Ajayi at CB and Gibbs is at LB as usual. Flamini/Coquelin/Podolski at 3 CDMs with Podolski as the holding attacking DM. Sanchez and Cazola at CAM with Cazola as the creator. And Giroud leads the line. The boss has to audaciously do something new and different from the known usual Line-up against QPR. It is a 3pts game for the Gunners.
Swap Podolski and Cazorla and I would be up for watching that team… If it would win… I dunno.
My reasoning behind swapping those players around is because Cazorla I feel would be better at defending, he doesn’t have 30 min quiet periods like Podolski and he has quick feet which would help him skip past a couple players to release Podolski… and Podolski is the best finnisher at the club according to it so we would want him around the box more often than not, he can score with his left peg if given space and the chance. At least I have more faith in Podolski finnishing compared to Cazorla.
I have been impressed with Debuchery at CB, I would actually be happy to see him develop into a CB over the remainder of this year, if Wenger only has £20mil as reported in Jan then I would hope we get a holding CM and one with good enough quality may mean we can not afford a CB as well.
Personally I would want Chambers to have a bit of a rest, he has played a lot and he is a veratile player, ideal for having on the bench, resting him for the game 2 days after.
This would allow for Bellerin to play RB instead of Chambers, I do rate Bellerin as a better RB anyway, Chambers has done a adequate job at RB but I do prefer to see him in the middle…
We have to play WHU 2 days after so resting Chambers to me would be ideal as we know WHU will pump balls into the box and we’ll need arial dominance against WHU in our own box, also our fullbacks for that game will need to make sure they dont get overloaded by their fullbacks… Just look at some of the crosses Jenkinson has been putting in 😉 (I know Jenkinson would be on our left, Gibbs side, WHU fullbacks have both been doing well though)I feel Chambers would get overloaded on there left (our right) but Debuchery has the experience to deal with it.
WHU is equally an important game, in some ways more important if we get the win at QPR as it will be stopping a team above us getting 3 points while we get the 3 points, closing the gap quicker.