There is a saying in football, which the Arsenal fans should hope comes true for the Gunners this year, that any problems in the dressing room are made much easier to deal with when a team is winning. Some really tough managers like Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson have got away with all sorts of behaviour towards their players because those same players were confident that the managers would help them to win some trophies.
The Arsenal players are getting nicely used to silverware now, with three more pre-season trophies to add to the two FA cups and last year´s Community Shield success. And there is now real belief at the club that we can take it on another step this season and add the coveted Premier League crown to our cabinet, as revealed by the vice-captain Per Mertesacker in a Daily Star report.
But while the German centre back talked about the widespread confidence in the Arsenal squad and the belief that we would not slip up and have a slow start to the campaign that cost us so dearly last year, he did have some words of warning.
As well as talking about the possibility of real improvement from our Premier League rivals like Man City, Liverpool and Man United, the defender suggested that there could be some problems ahead for Arsene Wenger with some players likely to be unhappy as they struggled to get regular first team game time.
He said, “You can see we have a great squad, a deep squad it is. That means there will be some difficult questions for the manager to answer and for the team.
“There will be disappointment in the squad. At the moment it is easier to handle in pre-season because everyone gets his games.
“But once it is into the season, everyone wants to play in their own position.”
I wonder if he is thinking about his own place here, with Gabriel and Chambers likely to be pushing him a lot harder this season. It might need him and our captain Mikel Arteta to set a good example to the younger Gunners by accepting a place on the bench with good grace.
Do you think there is player trouble on the horizon for Wenger?
To be honest I see Gabriel replacing Per and partnering Koscielny for majority of the season.Chambers to seriously challenge for the CB Position.
There is some truth to the statement, not the majority of the season, but i can see Per appearing alot less than he did last season. I can see him perhaps being on the bench for cup matches or maybe not in the squad at all, and maybe being rested following midweek games, if we have games on the weekend or visa versa. The eventual aim would be to have Gabriel feature more give him a chance to establish himself in the starting line up or make significant steps into the transitioning of Chambers from RB into a CB.
Gabriel and Chambers need to do better. If they are unneable to bench a player like Merti then their future will be not that bright.
Ramsey, Walcott and Wilsher will often see the bench. ( Should see the bench).
Chamberlain need to play more. On the wings he is. >Welbeck>Walcott>Ramsey>Shigeru Miyamoto.
Hahahaha!!! That first part just made my day.
Per isn’t the fastest or strongest, he has experience at the highest level though (winning the WC), he is part of a great defensive team.
Tony Adams was slow, he had Keown covering him in the end due to lack of pace. Great partnership.
2 different type of players being able to cover a wider range of attacking threats as a TEAM.
Per also played a lot for us last season, think he was our 2nd most used player? After Alexis but Alexis can just keep going on and on and on and on 😛
Clean sheet against Chelsea would say that Per is good enough to be part of that defensive team.
Then I gotta ask.. Welbz ahead of Walcott on the wing?
Sorry to say but if you watched Arsenal week in and week out then you will not be saying that, Welbz does help out a bit more defensivly but he is nowhere near the threat Theo is going forward.
What is Arsenal without Kos and what is Arsenal without Merti?
I dont care that he won the Wc with Germany. He was not a big part of it anyway. I do care and get angry when i see him goofing around, alowing for example the likes of Remy, look up for his team mate, take his time, and then cross the ball without any pressure whatsoever. Got almost a heart attack at this moment. Such mistakes do cost us points, cups, titles.
He tllks much but he is far from being a smart player. I do remember him at the start of the season, and you guys should better do too. Bec Chelsea secured the tittle at the start, and not later on. I Pray to Zeus that nothing will happen do Kos and Coquelin.
Title* Srry for broken english.
couldnt agree more…he would not be in any other top tier team in europe … he is an accident waiting to happen ..can get away with it against second tier teams but forces others to defend more …and he remains the worst mover of a ball i have seen in that position just about anywhere in top flight fball
KS gunner.RKW.true goon. Sometimes when I see some of the comments on this site I am overwhelmed with disbelief You 3guys are savagely thumbed down for saying what I believe to be the blatant truth. When I watch Per play I see all the same things as you and I find myself screaming at him as if I can somehow make him change.I don’t want him to be bad but he is worse than that. I too witnessed the cross that Remi made when Ramirez missed an open goal. Per didn’t know what to do so he did nothing. His contribution to the Arsenal defense was zero.I don’t want to keep going on about him but I wonder how many of those upside down thumbsuckers actually watch the game and in particular the game that their hero is serving up. One fan actually made comparison to Tony his majesty Adams. Please!!
no Mert did not win the world-cup,e was part of the squad andplayed sum games,but when the big games came(semi’s and the final)he as dropped,every1 knows this,so stop trying to hype Per,we all know hes weak at the highest level
Any great team has depth-players need to earn their places…I think players like Arteta should drop to lower league teams if they expect to get more game time and extend their careers.
Fight for your place and be part of something big. If not let someone else take your place that will fight for first team football.
This is what i think our first 11 is this season barring any surprise last minute transfers.
Cech
Bellerin – Per – Kos – Monreal
Ramsey or Coq (depending on opponent) Cazorla
Ox – Ozil -Sanchez
Theo or Giroud (depending on form and opponent)
Debuchy can challenge Bellerin, Gabriel can challenge Per, Theo might play RW at times.
I really believe the team will pretty much consist of these 15 players, and maybe Wilshire if he ever gets healthy. Yes Gibbs might break in if he really improves and Welbeck might break in if he really can start scoring but I dont see that happening, but would love to be wrong.
This is a good squad, does it have the magic to go all the way? Barring major injuries, i think this team can challenge.
and if Ozil became unfit for any reason (damn injury curse!) then Cazorla can play ACM while Ramsey takes over the B2B role.
I like Cazorla in the ACM and I think we are lucky to have both Cazorla and Ozil in the same team ^.^
Did you see how well jeff did in the friendlies he played?
Once he learns better distrubution he could become a real talent for us, he isn’t that far off either from what I seen… I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the league cup and maybe appear on the bench from time to time.
Only problem i see wenger having is team selection, a good example is he will have a headache in selecting bellerin or debuchy for that R/B position.
Ramey or Cazorla for CM? I really like Ramsey in the middle but Cazorla has been fantastic…
Yet another headache… Maybe us fans should all send Wenger some headache medicine 😛
Cazorla is Asperine to all the other player who want to bench him. Especially Ramsey, Mate.
Is “Asperine” Italian for “Superior”? I think you lost me there mate.
They offer different qualities, will be played according to the need of the moment. (face-palm)
Tue in some sense, not so true in others.
True that players can question the manager and claim a position. But also true that players have to earn that posotion.
Doe anybody see Coq being benched for Arteta or Flamini? No. And I dont see either of those two unhappy, unless Coq does a flippeer and one of those step up and perform 100%, then its not much the managers fault.
Also, it is true that the manager has the prressure to deliver the trophies, because even if it is the players on the pitch, he is the one that saw, selected and put those players there, if he had seen not good enough then he would have had to change them..right?
and if in the team selectred a player doesnt follow his instructions in order to win silverware (ergo a game at a time), then that player should be benched. Problem remains: do we have a proper replacement fir such a playeer if the case becomes real?
Henry said the same as you, if he didn’t perform he felt that Wenger would take him off for another CF and we had some quality back then to compete with Henry, not in the same league as Henry 😛 but we had some very good talent that provided the competition.
Starting to get that back again now, one or two more seasons and we should have quality in quanitiy for all areas, we knew that it was gonna take Wenger a few years to rebuild after a decade of selling our best.
Off-Topic
What’s THE acronym of BFG? BIG F**KING GERMAN or BIG FRIENDLY GERMAN?
Bfg is juz not good enough….he must go
I have a bad feeling we’ll lose one of our midfielders next season. And I don’t mean Flamini Rosicky or Arteta. I mean Wilshere, Ramsey or Cazorla, maybe Özil but less likely. There will be so much competition for places this season that one of those three will be unhappy at a lack of game time. They’re all essentially competing for the same position – central midfield, behind Özil and next to Coquelin. I don’t want to lose any of them.
JEFF!
Some of you are not happy with BFG but slowness is his only main weakness. He makes a good partnership with Koscielny. He will be fine with Koscielny this season. Gabriel and Chambers will be good backups
Mertsacker obvious weakness is being slow. However his whole career he has never been the most mobile.
Strengths
Distribution
Pass completion rate
excellent Positional sense
anticipation
getting to high balls.
Strength to shrug off players
Good defensive Organiser
excellent in a settled partnership (Koscielny, Naldo, Hummels) especially with a faster partner.
My point is slowness is a bad attribute but you need to look at the bigget picture to judge him properly and fairly
hes also incapable of bringing the ball out from the back because of his slowness,this marks him down in the distribution colomn,plus the fact he has no physical presence,so im not buying him having the strength to shrug off players because this doesn’t happen when he plays.
The bigger picture is,you cannot play at the highest level nowadays with Mertesackers pace
OT. An italian sport journalist (4got his name) has said that real madrid has began looking for options to replace benzema as he is about to be sold to arsenal at £46m (via the telegraph). – I just wonder why this benzema thing isn’t going away inspite of wenger’s denial of any such business