Wenger changes his mind on Mavropanos

Sven Minislat made his first signing for Arsenal when he persuaded the club to sign Konstantinos Mavropanos from Gianna in Greece. At the time Arsene Wenger told the media that the 20 year-old was not fit and ready to play in England yet and would be immediately sent out on loan.

But after watching the youngster in training he has now changed his mind and he will be staying with the club for the rest of this season. “He looked comfortable technically, he looks very mobile as a defender and he looks very pacy and strong in all aspects of defending,” the Arsenal manager said.

“What I don’t know yet is how well he’ll cope with pressure, how much his lack of experience will be detrimental to his performances.

“When you go to a big club, every game and every mistake is analysed. Every action you take in the game is analysed, so you’re under scrutiny and that puts a huge pressure on you. If you make a mistake in a smaller league for a smaller club, it’s less of a story than it would be at a big club.

“We will see [how he copes with that] that in the games and I haven’t seen him play in England against an English team yet. I have to see that. Personally, I am encouraged by what I’ve seen and I’ve decided to keep him until May.

“Greece is a fantastic sporting country. Their basketball and football is absolutely amazing. They have a real knowledge of team sport and they produce fantastic players. He can be one of them from what I’ve seen, if he develops well.

“He looks like an intelligent boy as well, so let’s hope he will develop into a great player in the future for Greece.”

So just a couple of weeks after arriving n England Mavropanos made his U23 debut for the Gunners against Man United last night, and not only did we massacre them 4-0 but he helped keep a clean sheet, not that the United reserves game them too many problems.

With the injuries to Monreal and Koscielny and a weak performance by their stand-ins at the weekend, Mavropanos may even find himself making his senioe debut very quickly indeed!

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50 Comments

    1. Want we need Arsene is an old fashioned British style leader at the back. Something we’ve been crying out for for years and someone we will never get under your leadership. Go ahead buy another tiny jockey like midfielder that’ll get brushed aside when the big teams come to town. Grrrrr

      1. what a stupid comment when the article is about him buying a tall big defender !!
        Its quite clear what sort of budget Wenger has been given… make Kroenke loads of money and if you make money in transfer market you can spend half of it !!!

  1. All this talk of auboomerang and malcom X
    Where the hell is the dm and cb at?
    Biggie smalls said it best :
    Where’s Brooklyn at ?
    Where’s Brooklyn at?

    A dm wenger and a cb .
    Wengers defensive ideals are essentially BDSM
    Ever grated ur privates with a cheese grater ?! No?! Me neither …closest thing ? Arsenal fixtures

    1. Auba Ying Yang chicken wang, will not come here!

      Nor wil Malcom because he knows Wenger will make Malcom play in the Middle…

      See what I did there?!

    2. Painfully, graphically and above all, accurately put. Now, I will never grate cheese again, it will bring tears to my eyes. Less tears than if Wenger stays another season , obviously, but still, thanks to you Muff, I can never grate cheddar again. You beast!

  2. Wenger is still confused and trying to live in his old days. Football has changed. That is why Gunners are left behind.

    1. It amazes me that certain people still do not understand that Wenger has been left behind. Sorry but they cannot know much about football.

  3. He’ll only get game time if we get more injuries, because Wenger will not drop players who are out of form.

    1. Third Man JW, Well he never drops himself as manager and he has been ” out of form” (to use massive understatementout) since 2007, so why would he ever drop out of form defenders. Trouble is there ARE NO in form defenders at the club, or any at all, remotely good enough. Thanks entirely to him and his treacherous incompetance.

  4. It seems there may be interest in our young star Nelson I have just read, PSG and RM sniffing about So AW better get that kid re-signed before he goes for nothing to someone next year.

    1. What if he refuses to sign? Having been played out of position under Wenger maybe someone (PSG and Real Madrid have been mentioned) will realise his worth and come in for him with a guarantee of playing him where he can shine. Might want to follow the example of his mate Jadon Sancho who started for the first time for Dortmund the other day, having left Man City as he could see no future there.

    2. @ Coldzero
      You have highlighted a real problem here. Because of the mismanagement of the dinosaur we do run the risk of losing possibly the best player to progress from our youth set up. It is beyond me why having shown himself to be outstanding for both club and country at his age level Nelson does not get a chance by coming on as sub more often instead of the bang average players such as Welbeck. Also any chances he does he should be as in his position not wing back.

  5. Its essentially about money.
    Arsenals policy on transfers
    is we only buy after we sell.
    Chamberlain 40m and we
    could afford Lacazette for 50m.
    Now Arsenal is losing 3 CB’s.
    Top CB’s cost any thing from Sanchez at Spurs 28 m
    Bailey MU 30m Stones City 45m to VVD ‘Pool 75m.
    But Arsenal got only 9m from Gabriel and Koz and Mertz will yield zero.
    So basically Arsenal has no money for proven top CB’s.
    That’s where Mavropanos comes in.
    From raw youngster in just two training sessions Mavropanos is now a senior pro!!!
    Many more miraculous transformations will occur this year.
    Gabriel replaced by Holding 2m.
    Mertz retiring will be replaced by Mavropanos 2m.
    Koscielney to retire replaced by Mustafi.
    Wilshere to replace Cazorla.
    Niles (free) to replace Debuchy
    McGuane (free) to replace Coquelin
    Wellbeck to replace Perez.
    iwobi (Free) to replace Walcott.
    Nelson (Free) to replace Chamberlain.
    Akpom (Free) to replace Giroud.
    Even Ramsey can be the new Sanchez. 🙁

    1. We bought Lacazette on 5th July, well before we knew we were selling Oxlade-Chamberlain on transfer deadline day, which wasn’t until 31st August.

      1. We were going to sell Sanchez
        to City for 60 mill.
        Ozil was reportedly unsettled.
        Giroud was being courted by Westham
        Perez was ready to go and Chamberlain
        was rumoured to be going.
        Gabriel Gibbs Chambers were all being bid for.
        Mustafi was unsettled.
        There were plenty of money options available
        and when the Sanchez deal fell through at the death
        the club let Chamberlain go.
        So the money was earmarked .

  6. The encouraging point here is the lad is obviously not a Wenger signing and it seems the new structure is already beginning to be seen working.I wonder how much of Wengers decision to hold on to him and not send him out on loan was actually his.Lets hope Ivan Gaz is slowly turning the screw on Wenger and let us pray the new team are left to sort out the mess our scouting and recruitment has become due to the Wenger/Rowley incompetence.Im hearing Reiss Nelson expiring at the end of next season.Get this lad signed up quickly.

    1. exactly arsenal dealing in this transfer window does not reflect wenger below average transfer skill(not questioning his eye for raw talent but his negociation skill). We are looking to get MKHITARYAN as a direct replacement for either alexis or ozil. plus as back up we are going for malcom and aubameyang in case alexis refuses man u or mkhi refuses us which are probable scenario.
      Compare this to wenger awful pursuit of lemar where we low-bid them several times refusing to match their 65m(just an example) asking price only to panic and bid 90m on the deadline day when lemar was already off with french national team and pissed we didn’t try harder before.
      Diamond eye and raul sanllehi are already showing their positive influence even if raul will not officially become Director of football until febuary. Either wenger is co-operating which is doubtful at best or gazidis is already casting him aside. There may still be hope for us especially when wenger goes

    2. Whats going on with transfer is Sven/Gazidis/Sanllehi dont think wenger has power to stop anything also not involved with negotiation like used to be before – now is a yes man
      was not acceptable to keep players for such long time and awards them lucrative contracts like walcott,Debuchy,welbeck,Metersacker, etc

    3. I’m calling it right now that gazidis is slowly pulling the rug from under wenger’s feet. First most of his dinosaur staff is fired and replaced and new head scout in and soon director of football. If anyone had any common sense they would know that stan nor gazidis isn’t responsible for this. Do you think stan or gazidis wants to miss out on top 4 again and get less money? It’s Wenger’s attachment to his average set of players that is causing this. btw did anyone notice our future potential star Theo Walcott is leaving for Everton lol.

    1. sky sports confirm walcott will have medical at everton today so thats one out for a reported 20m which is a good deal. xhaka if played in a 3 man midfield with 2 wingback like chelsea play would do well. But we will never play 2 defensive midfield player just to protect him so he has to go. He’s not worth sacrificing both wilshere and ramsey plus potentially limiting ozil influence.

      It was a gamble but did not pay off. The other big 6 do it all the time, props for wenger(i am all wenger out) for trying a different hard and direct style player instead of the usual small technical players, now sell him even for a loss.

    2. Walcott and xhaka are not bad players, it’s the old man who is useless. Always insisting on using round pegs on square holes and vice versa. And inept tactics, like deploying wallcott against a big bus conducted by the portugese bus conductor , or using giroud and trying to pass around the D. I can list on and on but I’ll just be wasting my time, time better utilised getting pissed drunk.

  7. With respect it has little to do with money.It’s about buying quality ,young or old .As we are now out of top four contention it will become increasing more difficult to attract quality experienced centre backs such as Manolas of Roma.The fact is good opportunities will continue us to arise but you need a quality recruitment team to dig them out. Arsenal under the Rowley/Wenger regime had the opportunity to buy Harry Maguire for £19m yet they decided,in their wisdom to buy Mustafi for £35m. Who is the better centre back? An example of the incompetence of our Manager who will not do the decent thing until he is pushed out by the Board

    1. To be fair in the summer
      Maguire was still at Hull City
      and had no International caps.
      Mustafi had played for Everton
      Sampdoria Valencia and Arsenal.
      He had been a German international 3 years
      and was in the German 2014 world cup winning squad
      and their 2016 Euro squad

    2. Why would he be pushed out by the board? There the ones offering him contract extensions even when he doesn’t achieve the low targets they set for him. Wenger will leave when he wants. He won’t be sacked.

      1. Wenger got the contract direct from Silent Stan, Gazidis wanted him out, Gazidis is CEO of the board.

        That was well reported on at the time.

        What I find interesting is that Silent Stan gave him that contract, what was said to convince Silent Stan to give Wenger a new deal?

        Wenger couldn’t have complained about the CEO panic buying players like Perez when he wanted Laca? Would explain why no panic buys happened last window… and IF we did panic buy at the end then it would have been over bidding on one of Wengers main targets, not a Perez instead of Laca type.

        Then the talk for change and the changes we have initially seen is updating the transfer process, head of recruitment being changed and so far it looks like he has the say in transfers…

        Wenger wants Martial, Sven wants Miki… AFC by reports are doing a deal to get Miki… Not who Wenger wants.

        How easy will it be for Gazidis to say to Silent Stan at the end of this year (or next at the very latest), “See Silent Stan, told you I wasn’t the problem, I got top people in and Wenger is still failing. I want to get rid of him”

        Politics happen at club level and I believe we are seeing it happen, it is unfolding as time goes by.

  8. Now the Arsenal has Mavropanos, Chambers and Holding (3 potentially good young defenders) all that is required is a manager/coach, who knows how to develop and improve their defensive techniques, awareness to danger and abilities to defend as a team!

    1. All 3 players good but still learning their trade not good enough for the first Team at the moment.

      1. Dandy, note that I said “potentially”. Even if Arsenal recruit proven international performers such as Mustafi, they still need defensive coaching. Wenger obviously doesn’t utilize Bould’s knowledge and experience; hopefully Mertesacker will have more influence in future.

    1. But if Mahrez is now worth 100m
      Leicester would charge us
      50m for Maguire.
      That’s why we have bought
      2m Mavropanos instead.

    1. If we are not a big club why are you pissed when we lose games we should win or do poorly in the transfer market. It’s one or the other. You can’t be disappointed or disgruntled with Arsenal under achieving if they aren’t a big club to begin with. Everton aren’t a big club so there are no expectations for them. We are a club rich in history,tradition and accomplishments. We are a big club that is currently being mismanaged which is why most of us are calling for a new manager to take over.

  9. Majority of the signing recommended by new scout sven mislintat are rough diamonds and are capable of playing first team.
    Think he could come good for us.

  10. When is this gold digging alexis leaving? I can’t wait anymore !! Just leave and go to your rich daddy.

  11. Wenger changed his mind….
    Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks?
    Now lets see if that old dog can take that lesson and apply it to Xhaka XD

    I have defended Wenger a lot but he has not got the personality to deal with some of the big players anymore and we are seeing that with Alexis and Ozil, how the team harmony has been disrupted and Alexis is behind it.

    I said in the last window that Alexis should be made to train alone and not be involved in the 1st team until he signs a new deal, if we have to play without him for 12 months then at least players will know that AFC hold the power, not them.

    Looking forward to Raul Sanllehi appointment, with Sven getting gems signed and pushing for players he rates… If we have someone like Raul who can aid in getting deals done then I think we could have a good future. We would then be able to look for a manager who can do the things required off him, do tactics and to build upon the training to include defending…

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