Okay so the young Arsenal and England under 21 defender Rob Holding may have had a bit of a torrid time in our Premier League opening game, with the pace of Jamie Vardy and his Leicester City team mates and their dangerous counter attacking ability causing the former Bolton player all sorts of problems, but I do not think he should be too hard on himself.
On the Arsenal website Arsene Wenger has revealed that Holding took it hard and has lost confidence, which is the reason why he was not even in the matchday squad for the trip to Stoke on Saturday.
The boss said, “We conceded three last week so I changed a bit because Mustafi came back and Holding had lost a little bit of confidence.”
I can sort of understand that, but surely being a young and inexperience3d player as well as the fact that he has done very well in other games since Wenger put him on the right of a back three should help. You would think that the likes of Steve Bould and Per Mertesacker had been talking to him and giving him encouragement.
And if Holding feels like he let the side down how on earth are Mustafi and Monreal feeling, because they are highly experienced players and were probably even worse than the young lad?
Bob.
He said Holding just lost a little bit of confidence, not a lot. Holding will regain his form, because he is a talented young player, full of confidence.
What I am worried of is Wenger himself. He never regains his confidence since the Invicibles era and the club’s mentality has been going down in the last ten years.
Arsene Wenger is the cause of his own problems.Why did he sell Gabriel?A player who for all his mistakes has better defensive skills than Mertesacker,Holding and Chambers.I don’t care about potential as I’m talking about now.I also kept saying Monreal shouldn’t be played as a CB yet people here were including him in our best lineup possible when everyone is fit.This is just bizzare.Also this may be unpopular opinion but I feel Wilshere is better than Xhaka and Ramsey and only he in our squad has the intelligence to play the Santi role.
what ever man just stop playing Nacho at CB it’s so badddd
why play a 5 back if it’s gonna be as frail as 4 back
Holding should never be in that position to begin with, although he played admirably last season again he is young and should be slowly transitioning to first team while learning from other top senior players in his position. Last season it was Iwobi in this same position and I rate Iwobi as well. As it stands with our current squad the 3 at the back should be Monreal-Koscielny-Mustafi unless injury, suspension, fatigue or form changes that.
Monreal at CB makes no sense.What is Chambers doing in the team then?If a LB is playing over him then he should be sold.Monreal is not a CB so he can always give the”I am not a CB excuse”.I just don’t get it.This is terrible management.Our formation also needs to be varied with the current players we have.I hate seeing players being played out of position and being criticized for it.
Whaaaaaat?! Monreal at CB again! He is not a CB how many times must we repeat to get people to understand?
Holding is a talent, but he is nowhere near enough to what we need, if we are to challenge for the title.
But I feel sorry for all our defenders and our goalkeeper, as they get so much more to deal with than their colleagues in other teams. Simply because our midfield isn’t organized.
In the end they are more likely to make mistakes and get the blame, which really should be directed elsewhere.
ofcourse mertsacker & kos can tap him up saying ‘we were not at arsenal at your age. so, don’t lose mind your are doing great, just keep focus on your game’. that will do it for him.
yet to see if mustafi can be a leader at the back
obvious monreal will be the one feeling nightmarish now.
there was a tendency for him to ran away occasionally, suddenly realizing ‘shit i’m CB so don’t runaway’. he is the one need to be consoled who might be pondering over the conceded goal.
If Holding lost confidence, then Xhaka should be emotionally traumatized. And Ozil should lose so much more confidence that he would ask for a new deal of £30,000 a week!
Holding wasnt the cuz of our poor defending.. Wenger is the cuz. Y playing players out of their position.. Even Lacazette was played deep in our last match instead of playing around the d box to score bt welbeck ws allow tosquandered all the opportunities.. The problem of Arsenal is Wenger and his tactic , the board and mediocre players,Gasidiz and krokene.
If Holding lost confidence, then Xhaka should be emotionally traumatized. And Ozil should be totally torn apart that he would ask for a new deal of £30,000 a week!
OT: in the years it takes spurs to build their stadium our concern (having already built ours) should be to be light years ahead of them in every sphere of the game. from top to bottom a reappraisal is needed or they will be in the ascendance and while we’ll be in even deeper turmoil. we need to put sentiment to the side and replenish the squad, it means we stop making excuses for players that we all know cannot be relied on again. we should accept nothing less than quality throughout the side. some of the fans are lauding players that have contribute us losing our standing in european football we are now out of the top 10 european ranked clubs – if we continue to applaud mediocracy we can swallow dive further in to footballs no mans land. we stand to compete in domestic cups while watchin thfc make a go of CL competition. as it stands this is a shameful reality.
There is a strong talk of IBRA returning to United in a number 10 shirt. If that happens, the premier league has been decided, what remains is the top 4 battle.
Can you see that happening in Arsenal? Can you see us having a Lukaku and still willing to pay big salaries to IBRA? Can you even imagine that kind of ambition around Kroenke and his manservant?
Who sold this club to Kroenke? Didn’t they do a background check on Kroenke before they sold a club of this international stature and importance to a strange character like Kroenke?
Wenger said he lost confidence then dropped him ?? That’s a good idea. However Mikidemia will blam Gazadis lol
I really would have liked Wenger to give him the chance to bounce back. One of the things that caught our eye was how calm and collected he was for lad of his age. Sometimes you can only gain confidence from doing. Being away from the first team might have him second guessing himself.
But I can understand Wenger wanting to protect him and take the pressure off.
Some of the “fans” were absolutely disgusting towards Bellerin last season. When Bellerin had the respect to come over to the travelling fans at Selhurst to apologize to them, the abuse he received was shocking.
I can’t imagine that had done Bellerin the world of good for his confidence. The big boys can take, but ease up on the younger ones still learning.
How about managing the lad? Putting him in the reserves making him play a bunch of 18-year-olds is hardly confidence building.
How about talking him through it and building his character and confidence? He should have been told that it was normal for him to have good and bad games and that the three goals were not all his fault and that being an Arsenal player means you set things right in the next game not that you go hiding in the reserves. You might as well add that the most experienced players that day had a terrible day.
Besides if he really lost confidence is it so confidence building to tell the whole world he lost confidence?
Play Bellerin one more time on the left and his confidence will be gone as well and Ox is on his way to Chelsea quite possibly because he is sick of being played all over the pitch.
Wenger is a terrible man manager and morale builder.
He’s lost confidence as wenget the fool put him as the main man with others players out of position. He’s very confident for his age and cost but he’s still not ready to be the leader and main man at the back. He needs kos or per alongside him to reassure.
How to make someone’s confidence even lower drop them, great tactic!
What he should have done is got per as the captain and another cb to go and have a confidence boasting chat with him.
Off topic n3vet mind seri, I’m watching napoli v nice and St maxima is a powerful runner bit ox like.
wenger is a disgrace…m tired of arsenal fans in london who can’t do anything rather dan talk all day..arsenal just need overhaul..I wonder how somebody thinks arsenal will make 3rd with this present team
This season arsenal will have to fight it out with Everton for sixth place at the end of the season. please mark my words unless the unthinkable happens.
Wenger has a big problem with man management. He will continue to play people out of form when there are other options available. He will play players out of position till they are finished. Now he will ruin holding by dropping him when the reason we leaked goals is because Wenger “the professor” thinks he is so smart by playing so many players out of position. Now he has sold Gabriel. I doubt there will be a decent replacement in that area. A huge reason why ozil has been so poor is due to the lack of Santi in the middle keeping the ball moving forward from the back. No sign of anyone to fill that gap in either! 2 more years of this again and the season hasn’t even really started :/
Holding can be a monster for us (already has been at times) he just needs the playing and development time, which he will get surely this year will all the matches we have across competitions. He might make the occasional shocking error to be expected from a young player, but he will learn and improve, and hopefully with a back 3 such an error will be less severely punished by opponents with more opportunity for a teammate to save the situation.