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Pundit exposes one weak link in the current Arsenal team

Tim Sherwood believes that Dani Ceballos is too weak to lead Arsenal’s creative midfield and the Spaniard will get found out in this Premier League season.

Arsenal has brought back Ceballos for another season on loan after he shone for the Gunners towards the end of last season.

The club had maintained that they would like to take him back on loan and they have managed to get that done.

He was Arsenal’s main creative midfielder last season as Mesut Ozil was sidelined, however, Sherwood believes that the German is a better option to help Arsenal thrive.

The Gunners are hoping to end this season inside the top four and after managing to get Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on a new deal, they will feel they have what it takes to compete against the likes of Liverpool now.

But Sherwood is sceptical about their chances of getting the results in games because Ceballos doesn’t have the guile to open teams up.

He said via Metro Sports: ‘Ceballos in my opinion is average. I think he’s too weak for the Premier League and I think he’ll get found out this year. 

‘I think they need a little bit more guile in there. You need a player in there like Mesut Ozil in that middle of the pitch.

‘When teams are scared of the pace of Saka and Aubameyang and Lacazette and they want to defend deep where’s the guile where’s the player who is going to open the teams up. Ozil is the man to do that.’

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55 Comments

    1. Nailed it Val! Couldn’t have put it better myself! Let him wallow in the miasma of self doubt and shame! He had his chance and wasted it. No one will touch him with a 20 foot pole!

  2. Tim Sherwood isn’t a pundit he’s a prat and completely anti Arsenal! He also said our defence is still poor but not a peep on Totts and Chelsea who both conceded more goals than us! Can’t believe he actually gets paid for punditry what he wouldn’t know would fill a book maybe even a library!

      1. We’ll probably lose now 😂😂 well he’ll be back on track next week Sue he’ll predict Liverpool to beat us 5-0 😂😂

        1. Sue Gareth Bale is injured already 😂😂 rumour has it he injured himself putting on his seat belt 😆😆😆

            1. No doubt that’s getting recorded Sue ? 😄 Looking forward to tomorrow’s game I’m confident we’ll get 3 points are you Sue ?

  3. This dude is one of the most bias pundits ever , i havent taken any of his comments serious in a long time . He basically licks spuds arse at every opportunity .

    1. No man, he’s not bias, he’s not just good enough, I blame those paying mega box/ giving professional contract to amateur punters like Sherwood. Spurs found that out about him and he was sacked.

  4. Personally I do agree with him , having watched him all season I don’t think he’s good enough to be in our 3 man midfield ,but that’s me looking in and I’m not the expert ,I trust what mr Lego hair is doing so I’ll go with the flow .

    1. And u Prefer Elneny, guendouzi, willock, torreira? Tell me which of these 4 players I have named are better than Ceballos?

      1. Da, if Ceballos can reproduce that goal against Sheffield United in the FA Cup more often, I’m prepared to persevere a bit longer

  5. A spud recommending that we drop Ceballos for Ozil is the same as us praising OGS recommending United stick with him instead of getting a manager like poch.

      1. Haha yeah Sue they don’t look as solid without him 🤣🤣 it could have and should have been at least 11 lol

  7. Once I saw his name Tim Sherwood, I didnt bother reading. He always runs his mouth like a parrot making no sense when it comes to arsenal. When he talks about Tottenham, you think they are the team to beat. Lol

  8. Spot on. Even though Elnany does not overwhelm , He is better at performing the role of liaison between the defense and offence. Just ask yourself, why did MA retain Elnany and MG.
    Ceballos is average at best. Real loaned him to Arsenal to play and improve and there is no better place to improve than the premier league. Loaning him back shows he did not.

    1. Arteta requested for Ceballos himself..
      Madrid can’t just force Arsenal to get him on loan.
      Elneny is a good squad player at best.
      Can’t compare him to ceballos in terms of position mate.
      So chill

  9. My top five worst pundits of all time
    Tim Sherwood
    Andy Townsend
    Michael Owen
    Alan THE Shearer
    any other person can make up the fifth spot because I know he will be better than the rest

    1. Mcmanaman… Carragher…… Sutton….Jenas….Clinton Morrison and another I find really boring is Andy Hinchcliffe!!

  10. Ceballos is a quality player but he will have to be played more to see how effective and robust he can be at this level but for sure if we have to chose from xhaka elneny guendhouzi Willock AMN Nelson for midfield support then we are not going to make any progress with or without Ceballos … Need a DM and soon … Amazing how pool suddenly add a bit of quality seemingly overnight yet all our signings are long and tortured affairs …

  11. I watched this program, with Ian Wright, and a journalist (don’t know her name), and I can honestly say that Sherwood seemed to have no clue what he was talking about!

    He said our defence is awful, which it isn’t anymore under Arteta. He also said we need CB’s, well we’ve just signed two up and coming quality CB’s, how many does he want us to sign? Apparently Ceballos is rubbish, and Ozil is the answer. Haha!

    When Tim mentioned Ozil, Wrighty chuckled, because I bet he thought Sherwood was going to say something funny, but to his amazement, Sherwood was deadly serious about playing Ozil.

    He also didn’t get it that Arteta isn’t just winning trophies, but he’s changing the culture at the club.

    Either Tim is mentally not there anymore, or he’s super biased against Arsenal, or just never ever watches them.

    1. Well said thirdman 👍👍 our defence is awful yet we concede less than Tottenham and Chelsea but these two are exempt from criticism! I watched Alderweireld the other day and he makes Mertesacker look like Usain bolt lol

    2. I think her name was Melissa Reddy, and she really did show up Sherwood in that program didn’t she😂😂 I think at one point Sherwood asked whether she would judge Arteta glowingly if we lost the FA cup final, and she replied that she was not a scoreline journalist like others, and based her decisions regarding various sources, articles and interviews.

  13. 4-3-3 dream team:

    Willian – Aubameyang – Pepe
    (Martinelli) (Lacazette) (Saka)

    Ceballos – Aouar
    (Xhaka) (Nelson)

    Partey/Diawara
    (Maitland-Niles)

    Tierney – Gabriel – Saliba – Bellerin
    (Lopez) (Mari) (Holding) (Cedric)

    Leno
    (Raya)

    Other squad players:
    Luiz
    Elneny
    Nketiah
    Runar

    So, barring this homegrown limitation (we’ll figure it out), that team should do good for top 4 finish and Europa League victory.

    Loaned out:
    Balogun
    Willock
    ESR
    Ozil (un-sellable 😒)

    Sell:
    Sokratis (£4mil)
    Mustafi (£20mil)
    Chambers (£12mil)
    Torreira (£22mil)
    Kolasinac (£14mil)
    TOTAL = £72mil)

  15. Dani Cebbalos would have fought Nketiah violently but thanks for the timely intervention that came from Sead Kolasinac who intervened to quell the the violence that will likely have happened between the 2 Arsenal players.

    Though I don’t know what Nketiah said to Cebbalos that made him so angry to the point of him trying to hit Nketiah violently which if not for Kolasinac intervention would have degenerated to a fight..

    But even then, I think Cebbalos should have shown high sense of maturity, self control and responsibility by remaining calm to not try to escalate the potential trouble shooting situation.

    2. Yes you’re right but don’t let us have hatred for any of them because of that. All we need is them getting on the pitch, give us a world class performance and we get the win. They can settle whatever issue they have when they get back into the locker room.
      If let that get in our mind, what about other issue during training sections that we’rent even seeing?…… COYG

  16. Lol.
    The Ozil myrh still lingers.
    When was the last time Ozil did one of these “Split the defence” passes?
    I feel like it has just become a Catchphrase. “Ozil splits defenses”.

    It remimds me of “Arsenal play attractive football”. We stopped playing beautiful attractive football the moment Fabregas / Nasri left in 2010. But the pundits have kept saying it to today even if since the Cesc era ended we became a very mechanical/ methodical team that looked clueless in possession and out of possession. We have no set style until Arteta took over a few months back.
    Now we are a very organised (Mourinho/ Simeone) type. Which has given us more optimism and confidence.

    When was the last time Ozil made a final defensive splitting pass that made you go “wow” like Cesc used too on a consistent basis? I will wait for the answer by text on my Nokia 3310.

    Ozil throghout his time at Arsenal has struggled to even get a mere 10 assists per season.

    That is 7 seasons and only one season has he ever gotten 10+ assists in EPL seasons (2015/16 = 19 assists).

    But for the other seasons he averaged about 8 assists per season.

    In the last 3 or so seasons he has struggled to even make 5 assists in each of those seasons.

    So, i say, stop this Ozil creativity myth / catchphrase.

    Same with this how pundits going on about Arsenal play beautiful attractive football catchphrase. We stopped when the Fabregas era ended in 2010.

    Thank you very much

    2. I think we did play attractive football after 2010. Nasri and Cesc weren’t the only creative maestros we had. Rosicky, Wilshere, Cazorla, Ozil in his first three seasons etc. Did you forget the numerous one touch goals, that goal against Norwich, our second against Barca,the third one against Leicester in 2018 to name a few?

    3. Well if you really want to be fair assists are not a true measure of success but you have to count missed chances that should have been turned into assists. For instance playing with Ronaldo and Aguerro is slightly better that playing with Iobi and Walcott. As for defensive splitting passes and style of play they depend on the formation. Not defending Ozil because he should do better like any other player on the squad but making him the source of all evil is not helpful.

  18. So I know this isn’t relevant to the article, but I tried watching the tiny totts documentary (bc I love the sport), and as soon as the narrator said, “Now they’ve amassed a squad full of global superstars,” I laughed my ass off and turned it off.

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