For some time now the first choice central defensive pairing for Arsenal was Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny. The stature and aerial prowess of the German combined with his experience and reading of the game seemed to perfectly complement the pace, aggression and front foot defending of the Frenchman.
And at 31-years old and having hung up his international boots, there should be problem for the BFG to carry on at the top for a good few years yet. But it has still been looking more and more like Arsene Wenger was thinking about playing Gabriel alongside Koscielny as our first choice pairing, as the Brazilian has that same pace and aggression that is so necessary in the rough and tumble of the Premier League.
According to a Daily Mail report, the Arsenal boss was planning to start them against Manchester United this weekend. Van Gaal´s side now has the pace of Memphis and Martial in their front line and with Mata and Rooney as well, there is no height to worry about.
But we have lost Koscielny to a hamstring problem and that leaves the ponderous Mertesacker and the inexperienced Gabriel to cope with the league leaders. They might not be fantastic but to beat Man United you would think that we would need to avoid the sort of defensive calamities that have been all too frequent in recent times, so could this injury to Koscielny cost us victory over United?
If it does then we head into the international break in a bad frame of mind as well as a bad position in the EPL table.
This may sound stupid: play Gabriel and Flamini in Koscielny’s absence.
flamini?!
wtf?!
mayday mayday the ship is going down
LOl!!! Well, I actually tot of Debuchy, but Flamini has played there more than Debuchy ever has. Or would you go with Monreal?
Wow… The hatred for some of our players borders on madness.
You actually believe Flamini, Debuchy and Monreal are better options than Chambers and Mertesacker?? Against Man United?
flamini’s done his hamstring amigos !!!
Kolcieny’s absence will not cost , Not addressing the obvious deficiencies in the team is what is going to cost Arsenal and probably Wenger his job . You can feel the anger in the fan base is building .
You can have short and non physical players alright but those players had better be gifted like iniesta and co .
The problem goes beyond the CB , CF DM issue .
Winning mentality
Work rate
Ball winning ability
Football brain of the street type
And many other stuffs not measured by OPTA.
How many of our players can get the ball out of tight spaces around 3 markers without running with it ? Ozil , Sanchez, Cazorla . Well ,that is the foundation of possession football .
This is the reason why great teams are indomitable. Every single player is comfortable on the ball and does not need to run with it to dribble you.
There are certain fans who love to single out some players like Gibbs , Ospina ,Debuchy , Ozil ,Walcott and Cazorla while protecting favourite .
They simply try to ignore the fact that their favourite like Ramsey , Giroud and Wilshere are just plain average players who happen to the worst performers at the clubs .
If we are going to challenge we need to sign at least 6 full international(not bench players like Giroud) to come directly into the first 11.
A few weeks ago , I was downvoted when I mention that Manchester United attacks with more venom and speed. Their wingers are quick and actually play like wingers. I simply cannot see us beating them unless ……………
and how many times do alexis looses the ball… no wonder inspite of all his talents he was sold by barca… basically wenger have developed a counter attacking based team (aka real) and trying to play possession football (a la barca)
Even with Kos Arsenal wouldn’t beat Manchester United .
Nothing wrong or embarrassing about the FA Cup. The fact we won twice in a row is very commendable.
FA Cup is a well regarded trophy with a Long storied history
Yes there is nothing embarrassing about winning the FA cup & winning it twice in a row is achievement in itself , last time I checked winning the fa cup = £2-3 mil , Wenger’s salary = £8.5 mil (not wengers fault alone)
FA cup is category B cup .
The fact that Portsmouth have won it recently and our recent final opponents were HULL and Aston Villa proves that .
In other words , you can call it a condolence cup for failing to win the league or champions league after challenging for them .
The problem is that we aren’t .
Wenger opened himself up to serious attack and he deserves it . He ought to have signed players to mount a challenge
i will be so p*ssed if we dont get a result against manure
im going to the match with faith in my heart
and money in my wallet.
may end up leavin with nothing…….COYG prove me wrong
I really do hope that you witness the best Arsenal performance of the season matey! ?
A Sanchez thunderbolt, A hat trick for Walcott and a cleansheet for Cech and of course enough change left in your wallet to buy yourself a kebab on your way home ?
Yes, I know I exaggerated a bit…
There’s absolutely no way that you would be left with any change! ?
COYG!
@muffdiver: If we score first, hopefully it is by Alexis with his superb strike again, you will not back home empty handed.
“Will Koscielny injury cost Arsenal victory over Man United?”
No. But Mata and Martial’s impressive form might.
dont care sanchez is better than both of them
if going forward we play like we did vs Leicester we will be devastating
my concern is mertesacker an ozil hiding in a big game again.
we needed kos badly on sunday
Ozil’s form is particularly worrying. He only seems to be effective when the whole team is doing well. And quiet when the team is playing poorly.
We were not good going forward against Leicester . Leicester played an open game which we will probably not see again this season .
By the way , a substantial chunk of that match was played in our 18 yard. Not the stuff of an aspiring title challenger
I think it could be a good thing as our new Brazilian CD is brilliant. With PC and BFG it should be ok. But I would play chambers just in front of tbem as cover and still play FQ as DM. It’s all about not losing the game this weekend. You could even help FQ out with Rambo and just kind of park the bus. United are not the best not the same team and I think they have been lucky but there new French lad could do a number and come back and shaft AW
What? No, just no… Martial has been great so far. But hardly a player you need to plan for. The amount of praise he gets on this site borders on ridiculous.
Worried about per,did you see how he was defending by eyez on third goal we conceded yesterday?!
Koscielny is one of our key defenders at the back! This does bring some concern with the man u game on sunday, with who will fill the void? Because we need to keep it tight at the back!
Big mert will have to step up “big time” and play the game of his life!
In the near future i would like see this fomation:
Cech
Debuchy – gabriel – Koss – Monreal
Le Coq – Ramsey
Bellerin – Cazorla – alexis
Walcott
Its a very weird formation, and you gonna give me many thumbs down, but:
– is more often, in every match, see bellerin play like a right winger instead of ramsey or the ox, if we can provided a cover, like debuchy, i think that can produce more fluent game and danger that both.
– ozil is the most cold and distant player in the pitch, but no like dennis bergkamp… zero passion and heart for the team… Un “Pecho Frío”, time to ozil be dropped.
– i don’t like to much ramsey, but we don’t have any other option.
– and finally, we do not have many more options, because, like everybody know, are all injured…. and wenger didn’t buy a outfield player…
PS: How i miss Rosicky, to me is far better that ozil…….
Wenger Out. Cheers.
Interesting line up but wouldn’t happen.
i know, but dreaming is free¡¡¡¡¡ LOL
good lineup…but how dare you think differently!!!! this is wenger’s arsenal…. we use the same tactics every match (ie looking clueless in the final third) …. improvisation is criminal for our team
No Wenger will cost Arsenal Victory over Man Utd. How by not singing the player’s Arsenal needed in the summer transfer window. WENGER OUT.
I think Wenger, in a roundabout way, gave the answer as to what is really going on in the club last night. He said people were giving him criticism without being in full knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes, then he said that to compete in the CL, you needed to be able to rotate players. Everyone thought this was a defence of Ospina, but maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was him saying that he wanted to buy players but wasn’t allowed to. After all, if he is thinking like this, why should he sell / loan 14 players and only buy one?
I read an interesting article last night, that would explain it. It said that Kroenke was ramping up the cash reserves in the club, as this would give him better credit amongst lenders, in order to borrow the money to buy the shares at a cheap rate, when it comes to launching a bid to buy out the other shareholders. It is exactly the same as the Glazers did at Manure, and there is no reason to think that Kroenke would do otherwise. It would certainly explain the bizarre behaviour in the transfer market, the reason why we are adding so much to our cash reserves without spending any (by selling / loaning 14 times more than we are getting in), and put Wenger’s comments last night in a different light.
If true, it means are club is being run as a business venture, not as contenders for any major trophy, it means that Kroenke is not as ‘hands off’ as he likes to make out, although there has been evidence to support that in the past as well, and it shows what a huge mistake it was for Danny Fiszman / Nina Bracewell-Smith to sell their shares to him, as he appears to be using the Glazer model as his template.
*our club ;(
All the teams in the EPL
are battling including the
Gunners and the Red Devils.
Every game is a lottery.
Despite their vast spending
United look vunerable.
Picking a comfy win for Arsenal.
Arsenal spent a lot of money
in the summer of 2014
only Sanchez is worth it.
42 mill on mediocre players.
Wellbeck 16 Chambers 16 Debuchy 12.
Not surprising Arsenal spent small this summer.
Also don’t understand why we
did not accept City’s 40 mill offer for Jack.
City and Utd spent big and struggle.
Arsenal and Chelsea spent small and struggle.
One of these battling teams will emerge victorious.
The best of a poor lot.
In terms of depth, we are teetering on the precipice of an abyss
The only areas we have good depth is GK, RB, CAM, B2B
CB: Koscielny is our best defender
Mertsacker is slow, Gabs and Chambs need more experience. We could have used one more top quality defender
DM= Obvious problem with quality of depth
LW = God help us if we lose Alexis to injury. Welbeck is out. OX and Walcott can do decent job but not LW specialist
Striker: Walcott is improving, Giroud is average to slightly above average
We should have got Van Dijk, Kondogbia, Draxler and Jackson Martinez. It would not have cost our whole £200 millon to get them. Less than £100 millon would have been enough
Van gaal is a poker player. And he plays to impress opponents. I Ve said it many tmes but psychology plays a huge part.
Play the game arsen. …
With or without Koscielny I can`t see Wenger pulling this one off. Arsenal have been bullied at home since the first match of the season and against lesser opposition, but with the Gunners you never know. Myself, I think Van Gaal has got United ticking and with the inclusion of Martial see a scoreline of 3-1 to United. Sorry about that.
boss’s injury wont cost us cause we are anyways going to lose against manure…. heck we couldn’t even beat them when they were under moyes… but thank god i would be traveling and would be spared the pain of another loss and more importantly another ball-less display by our sissy players