Arsenal Debate; Vermaelen v Koscielny v Mertesacker ? What’s your choice?

Posted on September 04, 2012 by admin

Who should Arsenal use as their first choice centre backs?

After yesterday’s heroic performance from both Thomas Vermaelan and Per Mertesacker, they’ve created a real dilemma for Le Professor. With Laurent Koscielny fully recovered from injury, who does Wenger use as our first centre-back partnership? I’m going to analyse the possibilities.
Our first choice centre back pairing was Mertesacker and Koscielny. Both started their first partnership together against Blackburn Rovers where we let in 4 goals and lost the match. The start was ominous but we eventually started to put in the performances of champions. It was a very solid partnership with Mertesacker sitting back anticipating any leakages in the defence and with Koscielny absolutely destroying any player that tried to tango with him. That mixture of pace and alertness was vital. What made this partnership even more impressive was the fact that they had to play next to non-conventional full backs who affected their positioning. However, I felt that Mertesacker was the weaker of the two and rightly so considering it was his first season as a Premier League CB.

The second rotation was Koscielny and Vermaelan. They are both similar in their play. Both are extremely fast, extremely strong and extremely aggressive. They both seemed to complement each other really well even with their similarity in styles. They were part of a defence that allowed a 7 game winning streak. There was a key difference to the defence and that was the fact that Gibbs and Sagna were both playing full back allowing our two central defenders to play their roles efficiently.

The final pairing that we’ve only really seen from the first 3 games of the season is Vermaelan and Mertesacker. They have both played extremely well together and have not conceded a goal yet. The partnership is similar to the German and the Frenchman. Vermaelan attacks when required and Mertesacker just holds the fort. This new found solidarity might be down to the addition of Steve Bould.

I actually feel confident with any combination. They all know their roles properly. If I was pushed, I’d actually have the Mertesacker and Koscielny partnership. They always seemed the most solid and I’ve always rated the German. What CB partnership would you prefer?

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Wengers lies – No choice and no replacement for Van Persie

There is obviously going to be a lot of anger from Arsenal fans after the news that Van Persie has moved to our biggest historical rivals Manchester United, after inferring that there was no way he would move to another Premiership club.

But what really annoys me is that just THREE days ago Wenger stated that he still wanted to keep Van Persie, and that Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud were brought in to play alongside RVP to help the Gunners go for trophies. Here is his exact words: “Robin scored 30 goals last season and you want to keep your best player. He was player of the year in England. We want to keep him. I cannot tell you more at the moment because I don’t know more.

“We have not bought the players to replace van Persie, but to strengthen our squad with the thinking van Persie will stay. That’s still my mind at the moment.”

But yesterday, just 48 hours after that statement, Wenger revealed that he had no choice but to sell Van Persie and that the new arrivals WERE brought in as his replacements!

When asked about Van Persie yesterday Wenger was quoted in Sky Sports as saying: “He is at Manchester United, unfortunately for us. The transfer was finalised in the afternoon,”

“It’s never great to lose players of that quality but he only had a year contract so we do not have a choice.”

When asked if he would be spending the proceeds on a replacement he replied: “We have already recruited since we have Giroud and Podolski who originally were intended to offset the departure of van Persie,”

So, like Nasri last year, Wenger has been stringing us along until he finally capitulates and sells another star player, just like he does every single year. Arsenal fans have every right to be annoyed!

Who could forget Wenger’s famous bit of misinformation last summer, which needs no more comment from me.

He said: “Imagine the worst situation – we lose Fabregas and Nasri – you cannot convince people you are ambitious after that. I believe for us it is important the message we give out. For example, you talk about Fabregas leaving, Nasri leaving.

“If you give that message out, you cannot pretend you are a big club, because a big club first of all holds onto its big players and gives a message out to all the other big clubs that they just cannot come in and take them away from you.”

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