I think we can safely assume that this weekend will see Arsenal come up against a more adventurous and forward thinking Newcastle United team to the one that worked hard and sat back to hold Man United to a no score draw at OLd Trafford last Saturday.
So the news revealed in an ESPN report that our France international centre back Laurent Koscielny looks set to miss the game at St.James´ Park on Saturday is not what we wanted to hear. However, I do not think there is any real need for us to worry too much.
As long as the other first choice centre back Per Mertesacker has fully recovered from his illness as expected, then I think that we should not have any problem with Gabriel coming in. The Brazilian really warmed to his task on Monday night and I see him as a direct understudy to the Frenchman, with the same pace and aggression.
And with the brilliant Petr Cech organising his defenders and exuding calmness and authority, there should be none of the nerves that riddled the first half against Liverpool. In fact, a slightly weakened defence might help us by making the Magpies even more happy to push forward and make it an open game.
If the BFG is still ill though and Gabriel has to partner Chambers at the heart of our back line, we could have a problem on our hands…
No Koscielny is always a problem. We’re you not watching last season? Nonetheless I’m confident with Gabriel. He’s a good centre back no matter what the media will have you believe. Chambers was our main defensive culprit on Monday.
Chambers needs to go on Loan ASAP. Debuccy is better in the mid time
That’s a really good point.
Last season whenever Debuchy covered CB position he did very well.
Debuchy was better than Monreal and Chambers at CB
I’m not going to lay into Chambers as he is young and inexperienced at CB however if he continues poor performances in that position we could be in trouble if we had long term injuries.
Gabriel seemed better and I think that with time he will be quite good.
But if we don’t get another DM, I’m going to be very worried. What happens if both Koscielny and Coquelin get long term injuries?
Exactly!!!! Oh, I am so badly angry now!!! Debuchy would do a far better job as a CB than Chambers!!! Matter of fact, who does Chambers think he is while playing as a CB? He thinks. He’s Ramos or what??? Always trying to do spectacularly stupid things.
My goodness, there are movies you should not watch over and over again, Wenger’s approach to the game is one of such movies. New season, I mean the breakthrough season, see where we are???
Per Mertesacker gives the saying. White men cant jump a diff dimension. lol. Without Kos our Def. Is awerage and very weak. Newcastle for example have a balanced partnership at the back. Its going to be tough to beat them. Frankly, everyteam we face gives me the impression that we are going to have a hard time
Not sure if others have become stronger or we have become weaker.
Mertesacker is a shell of a man without kos next to him, so i am worried abit about saturdays game
You want to tell us Kos’s last great game without BFG next to him?
Tell me the last game kos played with out mertesacker which was a poor performance from him? But mertesacker with out kos on the other hand….. Stoke away, Southampton away! Mertesacker is poor and is often caught out of position and aint got the legs to get back, he got dropped after one game in the world cup coz he was poor
Just about any game for France, any game with Djourou, Squillaci or Vermaelen before PM arrived. Did you watch the Pool game and assume that the catastrophe at CB was solely due to Kos missing? Come on man, watch some football and think it through.
More to the point if you have thought it through, what have you been watching. Please enlighten me, because I have only the wit to see what is before me. I usually enjoy most of the stuff that you contribute to this site but never the Mertesacker problem. For some reason the wind howls and all your leaves fall off. Of course neither of us will change,but I would love to know what I might be missing ?
Arsenal rotation.
Injuries 🙂
That made me sad.
Why worry?
We have the squad to easily cope with the missing players we have.
Quality in every position !
No, wait…..
We’ll miss Kos. On the other side, We’ll see paulista play again. He needs playing time and I actually like Him. He’ll only improve and we forget He was a great deal during his time in Villareal…
Exactly, Paulista the beast has it covered and with a resurgent Cech we should hopefully be good.
Whether we will score a goal or endlessly move the ball around in the midfield is another question entirely!
Another thing you people i bet have noticed aswell. Liverpool attacked us mainly on the left side. On the right it was harder for them, bec monreal is very decend and Sanchez does his part in the defence.
On the right it was only Bellerin all alone. No Ramsey there to be seen whatsoever. If it wasnt for Bellerins speed, Cotinhio would have made puree out of us. Coquelin helped us also a lot. The fella with his style of game will get himself injuried sooner or later. Real warrior he is.
Totally agree with you @Ks-Gunner.
Saw that problem all game and kept screaming at the screen for Wenger to bring on the Ox so we could have a balanced team. He is not helping Bellarine at all by giving him so much responsibility in the team and also weakening one area of our team. We love Rambo but the only way we can have a balanced team is either his played in the middle or out injured because God knows Wenger cant leave his favorite boy on the bench. As soon as Ox came on the right side started functioning all of a sudden. Ozil and Sanchez got worn off towards the end of the game because each time the ball came into the midfield the ball went to there side. Made our play so predictable and frustrating to watch.
@ admin
my comment is not popping up.
off topic
I maintained a healthy level of optimism and realism in this transfer window.
I wouldn’t entirely blame wenger for is choices and stubbornly tenacious enigma he is known to be especially is decision making towards reinforcements. I wouldn’t query is decision of not buying a world class striker and a defensive mid fielder in this window because there isn’t anyone available and if there was a chance signing anyone it shall only be achieved at an unrealistic digit because top clubs don’t necessary need our financial resources and it is true there are lesser availability of quality talent in the market. In other words, more clubs with huge financial capacity in demand for few talented players.
In addendum I support wenger’s decision and philosophy on looking inward before peeping outward, yes! I back is decision for not adequately reinforcing our mid-field with steel “alibi the rumored Seville player esque’ because of his relentless faith in the ever growing and resourceful 17yr old Adelaide who has a great potential to become something sterner this season and onward, the lad is truly mechanized to become something great soonest.
Having enumerated on that, I will blame wenger for not experimenting and taking risk on older and experience top players ‘strikers” out there who can add to our collective developmental program, over the years he has been taking some gob smacking risk on unproven young lads the question is why didn’t he bestow the same confidence on older and productive ones in the market? He could have opted for someone like tevez, falcao at least a loan for temporary infusion or buy sevilla’s carlos bacca or shakhtar Donetsk douglas costa for competitiveness in our striking department before they were snatched by Ac Milan and Bayern Munich respectively.
In hindsight, is it down to the recent criticism on arrogance and naiveté? Or blind faith on young and inexperienced players? It is provoking to say the least, wenger keep allowing emotions and illusion to eclipse sensitive and substantive demands. It’s obvious to everyone we are not formidable to challenge the elusive premier league and it’s out-rightly down to wenger’s intentional negligence.
I can understand fans worry about Chambers but the same scenerio with Bellerin on his debut,Chambers will come good with more playing time I believe.
Yes,Kos is a boss but with Gabriel at the back I rest assured.
Get us a striker Wenger so as we can have our hopes back.
OFF TOPIC SLIGHTLY:
This is my opinion on our transfer strategy but firstly I’m not saying either we WILL or WILL NOT buy anyone, it’s just an simple observation…
I personally don’t agree with us making it a habit of purchasing on deadline day but it now seems to be the Arsenal way. Reason being not only because for obvious reasons like earlier integration into the team for a new player/players but looking back now at last season we were 12 pts off the champions in the end. If I’m not mistaken on deadline day every year we’ve had play 4 games already going into the international break which coincidentally there’s 12 pts already. With this season schedule and a team of Arsenals stature we should have been gunning for all 12 of those pts but that’s already not the case after just 3 games into it so far. So far out of 9 of those 12 pts we’ve only managed to secure 4, 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 draw with the win coming away from HOME(sadly) which almost makes our next game away to Newcastle look like a must win in a sense. Not saying that a new quality player or players would have made an instant difference but it couldn’t hurt and we should have planned accordingly. The arrival alone could have provided that lift for players and fans alike we’re our fortunes so far could have been absolutely different. Now again even if we were to pull off Messi on deadline day it still wouldn’t change the past results which I think we have shot ourselves in our foot big time on that. Every point is precious especially the ones at home and until we realize that we won’t be coming champions anytime soon. Which bring me to another point, every season we make it a habit of depending on the other teams to drop points throughout the season but that in itself it a negative and loser mentality. Our destiny should be in our own hands from day 1. Hoping for 3 pts at St. James park this weekend and looking forward to either huge delight or a massive disappointment come deadline day.
Well put!
Unfortunately the powers that be don’t see it that way.
Wenger likes to wait for a bargain and until:
– all of the best players have gone.
– integration into their new team is during
Competitive matches.
– window is shut so he can concentrate on
That amazing cohesion.
– PLAYER PRICES WILL BE AT THEIR
HIGHEST AS CLUBS WILL KNOW HOW
DESPERATE WE ARE TO SIGN
SOMEONE IN THE LAST MOMENT OF
THE WINDOW (coughs..Wellbeck)
Good post. Wenger does seem comfortable with gambling that the current players will get us off to a flyer and wait until the dominos start falling on deadline day. I don’t agree with him in this respect but I do in respect to when the window should close. For me it’s a big distraction for managers, players and fans at a time we should be focused on the football not the boardroom. Close it before the season starts.
Agreed
The transfer window should close one month earlier and open earlier at end of May. We shouldn’t wait so long after season ends and players/manager should not be distracted with it during start of new season
Jackson Martinez would have loved to play for us. I don’t know much about Kokorin but my gut feeling is that he is not as a prolific striker as Jackson. Maybe I’m wrong. However, this is what happens if you gamble and wait until the end of the season.
Anyway, I’m an optimist and I’m still hoping that we will get at least one of these players:
Cavani, Lewandowski, Reus, Greizmann, Aubmeyang, Higuain, Draxler, Gotze, Ibrahimovic, de Bruyne.
Krychowiak, Carvalho, Martinez, Bender, Wyanama
I’m hoping we don’t end up with Kokorin, Cheryshev, Blaszczykowski , Llorente but a player of higher quality
Kokorin 30 goals in 3 years in Russia, never more than 10 league goals a season. He is a poor man’s Giroud.
Just a thought. … ?
Kos isn’t injured… Real Madrid want him..
In a player plus cash deal for Benzema ?
i really REALLY hope u r wrong.
“d’abord ne pas en prendre” said Aime Jacquet when people questioned him over his call not to call cantona and to leave Anelka out in 98. (“first not to conceed”).
We look like we arent going to sign anyone. But i still have that feeling thatwe are gonna get a big name player!
You changed your name I see!
Are you some kind of Metro Spam Bot???
Amigo, do you ever learn?
All things considered, it seems Welbeck is our best centre forward for now. He’s not exactly prolific but he’ll give us pace that Giroud doesn’t and physicality that Walcott or Sanchez don’t. It’s a shame about his movement though. Very often, we have no one in the box when Welbeck is playing CF. He needs to learn that as CF he should be at the end of chances and shouldn’t concentrate too much on creating chances himself.
Sanchez Welbeck Walcott/OX
but he is injured or someething?
Injured players don’t get well?
gabriel
We will not beat Newcastle with Ramsey on the wing and Giroud in the front. We need to play a counterattacking game with Ramsey and Coq in the middle and Sanchez, Theo, Ox leading the line. Ozil or Cazorla can play CAM.
Why are you saying that Gabriel is cover for Kos. He actually played on right in Spain. No, for me he should replace Mertesacker and right now ! Do you not like the partnership of two fast,hard tackling,great in the air centre backs who are both very good defenders. We should be so lucky.
Wenger had it wrong this wwindow
He had a great scenario with 3rd not needing the UCL playoffs.
He had an early great signin in Cech.
For the sake of the intentional statement..message sent to rivals etc…he should have already signed at least one more player…the effect can be seen in rivals, theres a lot of psychlogical games at this stage.
I really hope, even for his own sake, that he has soemthing planned…
I dont see it as a major issue, Gabriel should fill in for Kos quite easy, my concern is the balance in our team, teams have work out that we overload the left-side in attacking, which leaves our right side more open to attacks.
A choice has to be made for one of these 3 players to be put on the bench, Ozil the Brilliant passer, but does not drive at the opposition or takes shots outside the 18yds box, Cazorla the the deep lying Assist master, but lacks the power or pace to drive at the opposition from deep and Ramsay box to box midfielder, hard worker but weakens the team balance when he drifts to the middle and stays there. All three players encourages the possession game, which slows down play and take away the directness to the attack, but this is more suited when we are in the lead.
We have the forward and DM issues, which seem to be made difficult to solve by our arrogant and naive manager, i however feel a chambers is still a DM option and a change of formation can strike goals, with two strikers, any way that is my view
Quick question: why have we not signed Chris Lollichon from CFC to continue working with Cech?! Surely it’s common sense? They have worked together for most of Petr’s career, so what’s the deal? And don’t tell me because our GK coaches are good enough because wether they are or aren’t, it’s rather irrelevant