I really hope that the former Arsenal, Celtic and Scotland star Charlie Nicholas is proved wrong about the current state of the Arsenal defence, but he is certainly not alone in bringing it up. The 52-year old TV pundit has warned that Arsene Wenger’s failure to strengthen the Gunners options at the back sufficiently has left the team teetering on the brink of disaster.
Arsenal fans everywhere are hoping that the January transfer window and the easing of our crippling injury problems sort out the weakness at the back that has cost us dear already this season, but Champagne Charlie is worried that it might be too late by then.
With a trip to Liverpool on Sunday followed by a home tie with QPR and two away games with West Ham and Southampton before the manager even has a chance to sign any players, Nicholas reckons that the Gunners are just one injury from big trouble. And the way things have been going for us on that front, who would bet against another knock?
He told Sky Sports, “[Wenger] let it go too long in the summer. As soon as Thomas Vermaelen was sold, I don’t know for the life of me why he let [Carl] Jenkinson out on loan, it didn’t make sense.
“We just don’t have the numbers at Arsenal. Even the youngsters have been out injured.
“They must sort this out. It’s a lot for us to expect the defence will hold out.
“Nacho Monreal at centre-half was never a position that Arsenal should have found themselves in. It wasn’t his fault but you could see it was too much for him.
“January is going to be important. I just worry that over this festive period defensively they will show more frailties.”
Arsenal have just about managed to scrape by so far, but do you think we can somehow get through the next month or so until Wenger can bring in at least one decent defender?
I hope he is proved corect coz t will help arsene to woke up from deep stubbornness sleep.
This is the same man that predicted theo Walcott would be the top PL goal scorer this season
So to be clear, you are slating Charlie for not having psychic powers to see into the future and have knowledge of Theo’s long term injury?
Also you are comparing this to Charlie stating a fact that every single person on the planet bar Wenger knows?
Idiot is not a strong enough word for your comment.
He is just stating the obvious wenger should have signed
Van Dijk and Carvalho should do the trick in January. Didn’t Wenger try signing them this summer?
Signing those two is enough to make Arsene my surname.
Yes he is right,but comcerning the weekend game i dont just knw why am so confident for the game.firstly liverpool can never cope with our attack,and secondly if we defend from the front like we did from the last two games the defence will be under less pressure.Evne flamini weakness was well covered bcos we defended as a team and attacked as a team.Lastly,we have chambers back for the game and hopefully the Ox and Walcott so no need to raise any fears.Infact liverpool,s attack depends too much on sterling imho,and i think we can keep him quiet,he is not even a good finisher anyway.I strongly believe we will come out on top with hard work and commitment minus complascency
Our defense look like a crazy woman’s food without the boss kos.
So now Liverpool have got their own Alexis, ain’t that b*tch!
At 52 years Nicholas should be a top class manager earning good money. Instead he chose to be a brainless pundit earning peanuts in football palance. Did he say anything insightful in the quoted statements? No.
Before Thomas was sold Chambers was bought. Wenger stated then that they were in the market for a CB. There were reports that some Greek fellow had signed for Arsenal, however the fellow ended up at Olimpiacos if I am not mistaken. He claimed to have chosen that team ahead of other clubs because opportunities to play week in week out. Asked after the window closed why he did not sign a CB Wenger stated that there were no players of the right quality available. He pointed out that man u and Barca were in a similar situation as ours. I would add Chelsea to that list because they only hace two CBs in Terry and Cahill. Outside that they look to Ivanovic a right back and two 19 year olds with zero premier league experience. If they were to lose Ivanovic and Terry to injury they will have no full backs on the bench, a 19 years old at CB, and with the recent injury to Zouma they will have no one on the bench to cover CB.
Nicholas seems to be unaware of these facts at other clubs, and this explains why he will foreever be a pundit and never join the lucrative profession of club management. He tells us why sending Carl on loan after selling TV was not clever. It his logic that is warped. First Carl is a right back not CB thus the two cannot be interchanged. Second Carl turned 21 before 22 January 2014 therefore he counted towards the
Second Carl turned 21 before 22 January 2014, therefore if he was not sent on loan he would have counted towards the 25 men squad rule. This would have meant 24 men with only one space for a potential signing. Yet you say we needed to sign a CB and a CDM. That can only be possible because Carl is on loan. Third Carl had reached a stage where he needed to play week in week out, and he was not going to be guaranteed that with the purchase of Debuchy, Chambers, and promotion of Berelin. Fourth you lot here and other pundits such as Nicholas claimed that Carl was not Arsenal quality, so what has changed?
Nicholas wants to give an impression that Nacho was terrible when he was called to play CB. If you were to rate between Nacho, Per, Kos, and Chambers, Nacho will be second to Kos. The guy put a decent shift at cb and cannot be faulted for goals conceded in the games he played.
The quality of Nicholas reasoning makes his predictions less credible.
The Greek guy Manolas was from Olympiakos, and he transferred to Roma where he was guaranteed games week in, week out. But yeah Charlie Nicholas is pointing out a problem that everyone and their grandmothers can see. The only thing we can do now is pray hard that Wenger signs a good CB with a good injury record capable of providing quality cover and challenging Mert for his starting spot.
Thanks for the correction but my point is that its not like Arsenal were content with the number of defenders they had. That the club could not find suitable replacements cannot be blamed on the management. In such circumstances you can only pray for the best on the inhury front and hope other players can temporarily fill in when callede upon to do so.
Currently Chelsea have been extremely luck in that regard. Look at man city. Despite having endless financial resources they are lookng to Sagna to cover cb. Their expensive cb mangala is not pressing. They have no striker to talk about right now despite having three very good strikers at the start of the season.
Liverpool have switched to a back three because of lack of full backs despite having five full backs at the start of the season. Man U has had about 10 or so players at the back since the start of the season. This is what injuries can do to a team.
Finding a quality player who is prepared to be back up is not easy. Cech now wants out of chelsea becauyse of courtois. We lost fabianski and vito, hardly world class keepers because they were not content to be baxk up players. TV left because he was not content with being back up
Spot on. People bragging about selling Vermaelen should be reminded the fact that he had not played at all this season. Even if Vermaelen kept his form from the peak of his career everyone could see how Chambers is a huge improvement over Vermaelen. This guy is so versatile that it isn’t even funny anymore.
That’s one thing. Secondly it has to be said here that Bellerin is also an improvement over Jenkinson of the last season. We did very good leaving Jenkinson on loan because he NEEDS games. He is so poor under pressure as we have seen last season that the only way in relieving him of it is to field him day in day out. And that was difficult with Debuchy in the squad. I am very happy he is played at WHU.
But what I don’t understand is why no one is addressing the elephant in the room. Let’s face it people : Mertesacker is at the end of his career. This guy was the epitome of discipline in our squad. This guy never advanced the lines and always stayed back. This season he looks like a different person.
They always say form is temporary abd class is permanent. Therefore loss of form for a classy player will always be temporary. That is my view about Per. I hope you recall how terrible Terry was in 2011/2012 season. Some thought he was finished including the pundits. But today they say chelsea defence is rock solid because of Terry. Remember also that Per has paired with 4 different players this season and has also shifted to the left side of defence in some of those pairings. These changes affect the effectiveness of a player. I recall one season when Kos and Djirou formed a good partnership due to extended game time together. It is therefore difficult to see the quality of a CB when he is pairred with so many players in a short space of time. This is due to the fact that the two cbs have to complement one another. So developing an understanding is crucial to that.