Nicolas Pepe has not set the Premier League alight, in fact, he has largely been anonymous but the argument is that it is far too early to judge him, a point of view I wholly agree with.
In contrast, you have David Luiz, who has been at Arsenal the same length of time as Pepe in terms of games and yet not too many are saying it is too early to judge him.
There is a huge difference in circumstances between the two new signings, Pepe arrived without a pre-season, unfit and without any experience of Premier League football. Luiz, on the other hand, has immense Premier League experience, had a pre-season and was fit.
Luiz came with a reputation of being error-prone and a bit of a clown but his supporters claimed his experience and skill level was such that he would bring calmness to a chaotic Arsenal defence.
Well, we all now know that the Brazilian has lived up to the negative side of his reputation and he has done it in style and the reason that it is not too early to brand him a flop is that none of what he has done has come as any sort of surprise.
He has not brought calmness to the defence and there is little chance he will, he is playing how many of us expected him to, he has not let his detractors down in that sense.
To expect Luiz to be some sort of stabilising force enacting leadership qualities was always fanciful, he has never done neither and yet at 32-years-old some obviously thought that he would all of a sudden turn into some sort of Franz Beckenbauer for Arsenal.
Not only is it not too early to judge Luiz, but he could also have been judged before he signed for Arsenal and that is what makes his signing all the more foolhardy and ridiculous.
He is clearly a flop and it is not going to get any better.
Useless that’s why lampard sold him smart with giroud
We transfer our best players to our rivals and sign their under performing players.Gave CFC Ashley got Gallas, gave Giroud, signed Chec (10Million?)and Luiz(8Million) Gave Utd. RVP and Sanchez, signed Slyvestre (remember him?), Mkhitaryan, and yes Danny boy too.Gave City Adebayor, Chichy, Nasri and Sagna (they did not have any dross to give us). There is something wrong with out club. They could not bargain or pay upfront for Zaha but spent 72Million (I know it is on installments) for Pepe, and from what I have seen from Pepe is that he does not have a quarter of determination and motivation of Zaha who wanted to join us.Now we are stuck with another younger version of Ozil.
Your final sentence sums up the position with Luiz succinctly .Whoever is in charge of recruitment at Arsenal seems to lose the plot when it comes to signing centre backs.Luiz,Sokratis and Mustafi are the latest in a list of at least ten by my calculations in the course of the last decade.Let’s hope young Saliba and Holding prove to be exceptions to the rule.
Don’t forget the Litch himself.
A flop after just 5 matches???
WTF?
Sometimes it takes longer for a new player to adjust.
Mustafi is a flop but I gave him a couple of years
Give Luiz some more time please
Don’t rush to judgement
Give Luiz a time? To do what exactly? His 32 I don’t think there’s any room for improvement. He is what he is end of story. Let’s just hope we score more than we let in. That defence will let in goals no doubt.
We have to be patient with our new Gunners, because they have been playing in bad formations. However, we can see that Pepe and Luiz might never become our focal points in attack and defense, based on the abilities and the work ethics they showed in the last three games
When we saw Sanchez played in his first season at Arsenal, we knew that he had a big potential to be a game changer, a team carrier and a focal point in attacking. It was apparent because of Sanchez’s skillset and work rate, which I can’t see from Pepe and Luiz
They are still high quality players though, which could thrive like Salah and Van Dijk if they train and play under a mature system
pepe thrive like Salah? maybe
but Luis thrive like VVD? no way! he’s past that age
It depends on how Arsenal use him. I believe his age wouldn’t matter too much, because he is still fit
Thank you just give them more time
Luiz hasn’t flopped Luiz is being Luiz, I had my reservations of the Luiz signing as we all knew he could have moments of madness like Mustafi.
He was trying to gee the players up after Sokratis goal of you look back at the footage. So a leader and getting the players around him to push on and focus maybe something he can do but is style is always a bit brash.
It was a strange signing but it has been said here before that it’s down to the coaching slightly, Luiz gave away a lot of free kicks at Chelsea but wouldn’t have to make the clumsy last ditch tackles so deep in his box like he has done in the last few matches.
A leader has to lead by example. If Luiz and Xhaka themselves couldn’t focus and avoid silly mistakes, would anyone follow them?
Exactly imagine after captaining the match against Watford he had the guts to say in public that they were sacred against Watford in the second half of the game what type of captain does that or says that type of things about their player
Commented this in another post:
Talking specifically about David Luiz: here’s a man who played 160 games for Chelsea and gave away 3 penalties. He plays 4 games and gave away 2 penalties, please a factor in a couple of other goals.
So what gives? He can’t be so bad as we have seen in the 4 games, so I’m perplexed.
You are right, man. Kanye is in front of him in Chelsea. where is our own Torreira or a proper defensive midfielder like Kante…
we have Willock, Xhaka, Gwendouzi. That our coach prefer and none of them can offer the defence a protection. our midfield is too expose. but we keep on slaying the defenders. until the coach and we the fans see where the true problem. even van dijk/Ramos will struggle in that team
Very good observation. I have observed this a long time.The midfield is too slow to transit attack or defense wise,not combative they can’t win balls back.D pressure builds on the over exposed defense. For me xhaka lacks most of d qualities of a defensive midfielder.
David Luiz is David Luiz. A flop would suggest differently expectations. I don’t think we could have expected anything different from Luiz.
A much greater concern is Pepe who looks clueless to me. He might have fancy feet but football is as much about decision making as it is about technique. I hope he proves me wrong but early signs are not good IMO
Couldn’t agree more with this article. Luiz was so bad at times during his first spell at Chelsea, that Mourinho put him in midfield, because he knows what decent CB should look like.
Some fans claimed Luiz was a decent last minute signing, when in fact it was the complete opposite. Defence was our weakest area going into this season, so a WC CB should have been priority number one! If you said to Arsenal fans at the beginning of the window, the only CB we’re going to sign for this season will be Luiz, I would be surprised if anyone would have thought that to be acceptable. So why should it be acceptable, just because it was a last minute deal? Luiz was, and has proven to be, worse than we already had, so why waste around £8 million?
Luiz has never been a good CB in this league, and that’s what fans are judging him on. Given the shocking start he’s made, he’ll have to start performing like VVD, just make up on the ground he’s lost already.
Given his experience, I cannot remember a player starting his Arsenal career as badly as Luiz has. He’s easily on course to becoming our greatest ever flop! Absolutely abysmal so far! If anyone can think of player starting worse than him, please let me know, because I cannot think of anyone at the moment.
I think he has been trying to step up his game, by game I mean a new level of comedy. When a chuckle is not enough, he wants neutrals to fall from their chair, literal ROFL.
On a serious note, we have tried different CBs and no one flourish so it must be the system.
When defending, the DM should challenge the opposition player having the ball, if he failed, the CB should leave his post and press him, buy some time so the DM can get back and create a 2 vs 1 situation. In order for this to work, the space between them must be constricted.
The second goal, yes I blame Luiz but where the hell was Xhaka?? If he was drawn to the left, where was Willock? Almost everyone was behind the ball but how come Luiz had to go 1 vs 1 against Pereyra?
well said bro. no protection from our midfielders. if we keep playing this way , no matter who the defenders are. there will always be an error.
the coach needs to fix the issues from the midfield. just take the Tottenham game for an example, take a closer look at their first goal and where it was coming from
Never rated him highly before this, so is he really flopping when he is doing as expected? Needs to be seen as a midfield option, because in defense he has only just been a liability.
I feared for the worst the season, either holding/chamber or luiz/Papa or Mustafi/any one of them, the midfield aren’t helping the lad at the back at all. zero protection. look at the number of shots we faced against a team like Watford. even against Spurs, all the dangers were coming from the midfield and no body is tracking the spurs attackers from the middle , the back four is too expose and no doubt there, will be error if the pressure gets too much. another thing I noticed is the ball playing from the goal keeper to the defender, if there are opponent breathing down our goal line, I expect the keeper to kick it long. I think our coach tends to do it that way this season and I fear for the worst. opponent are not dumb like our coach
Having a feeling we should try the 3 CB formation for our next games due to our poor defense and players available.
Ceballos, Aubameyang, Pepe.
Kolasinac, Guendouzi, Xhaka, A.M-Niles.
Luiz, Sokratis, Chambers.
Leno.
Subs –
E. Martinez
Özil
Torreira
Willock
Martinelli
Nelson
Saka
It doesn’t matter what formation you put the players in they will have to be taught a system of play. Which the manager doesn’t have. Evidently
Someone like Torreira has to be in the front of the back four , week in week out. the back four needs protection. Gwuendouzi/Xhaka partnership offers no protection to the back four. example, Torreira was playing at the left side of the midfield against Spurs, while Xhaka was in the front of the back four , I think Emery is still experimenting while the season is already underway…
Ozil/Ceballos.off and , Willock/Nelson on the field of play in an away match in the pl… this is so ridiculous
Emery is a joke, he exposes defenders with his tactics. There us no one wining tactic, there is one that suits the team to fulfill its potential.
I cannot believe I am saying that but he is worse than Wenger defensively.
UE really seem to have a lot of problems from team set-up,selection, cohesion, structure, substitution, creativity, focus,mentality and discipline etc competence(technically and tactically)to me is really missing terribly.
personally, i would just brand him, i love the smell of burning flesh.lets put a giant R on his forehead, r , of course being for reject.hahahahaha.
Forget Luiz mistake for a second and recognize his contributions in our games.
VVD lost the ball for a goal yesterday for crying out loud. Players make mistake just like you guys do almost everyday.
Van dijk doesn’t make alot of mistakes that’s what I know
I have to be honest. I am not a major fan of David Luiz, but it’s not him its UNAI EMERY. Playing out from the back obsessively is insane especially when being deliberately pressed close up. Even play out specialists Barca, know when to play out and when not to. Arsenal/Unai Emery think to play out from defence every time is the way. Ask Socratis what he thinks about that. Emery is a Shmuck and plays one dimensional football and creates one dimensional players from good players. The man has not got a clue. To think I supported him. He needs to go right now.