Morning all, decided to leave it a little later this morning to see if there was anything new around but guess what, there isnt.
You will know by now that we have made our first first-team signing of the summer, and at 10 million euros, you would have to say he will probably be a starter next term. That of course leaves the question, who will partner him. Gallas is probably our best center back and if he was to leave we would definitely need a replacement, Toure just isnt as good as him and it saddens me to say it, but is in decline. If we got a big offer from El Arabi City I would bite their hand off and use the money towards a better defender with experience.
I don’t think our defensive options now will remain the same for the start of the season, one would expect Silvestre to be long gone by then *please God, please get rid of this hapless monstrosity* and the rest of the summer is going to be very interesting indeed. Another move probably isnt expected in the immediate future because that isnt really Wenger’s style, but as shown with this and Arshavin’s transfers recently, he is willing to break out of his own style.
I’m looking forward to seeing the state of the squad on the first couple of days in September.
One interesting point that has come to my attention is that Vermaelen’s position is left of center in the defence, which is of course Gallas’s preferred position. Could it mean Gallas is on his way out? If that was the case I wouldn’t consider Arsene’s defensive work on the team as actually diminishing the quality we have, and we don’t have that much quality anyway. Wenger’s work is still far from done.
Yohan Cabaye, the Lille midfielder is linked – The chances of that happening are 1084586y3946532044365-9365-9345-1
Right, thats all today.
More tomorrow, might be later than usual again.
Arsenal News 24/7
Difficult decision to make between Toure and Gallas. If you seel Toure to Man City, then we will be getting Micah Richards with 10 million pounds which would be an excellent deal. Gallas would only be sold for aorund 6-8 mill but he has a high wage stucture and has a bad attitude so that would be good for the dressing room but he is our best CB so bad for our performance. I would probably sell Gallas has i have never like him, JD and Verm im sure would stand up and take his place. All Wenger has to do now is sign a DM like Melo and we are set. Rumours are going around that we have offerd Floreitina 15 mill with Senderos and have accepted it and Melo will be signed by Arsenal after the Confederations Cup. Hope this is true
LOL. The starting position, whether centre left or right, will have no effect on the play of Gallas or any other central defender. Both defenders will position themselves during play wherever they need to be to eliminate a threat on goal.
Thomas vermaelen signing is good.but we should not sell toure or gallas..we have to keep both….so our depth in the squad wil increase…i think arsene wil convert toure or vermealen into a central defensive midfielder..and we wil be playin with gallas,vermealen and toure in the first team.if we sell kolo or gallas..then if somebody gets injured we wil replace him with djorou(good upcoming defender) or silvestre..which is a risk..so we need all three..we can sell sendores and get around 6-8m and buy a good central midfielder…
goonerpete: Gallas does not have a bad attitude, his professionalism has shown through this season and he has bounced back from the disappointment of losing the captains armband. Out of him and Toure i would rather Gallas stayI have to admit.
Arsenal1Again: The starting position of the center backs is a massive part of the whole defence. Gallas prefers the left side, as does vermaelen and djourou. Toure is the only center back that prefers the right of center position.
I’m sick of gooners calling gallas our best CB.that shows we played last season without CB.I want him to go.he’l be 32 and he can fetch us 6 mil from any french club.why then keep him till he’l bcom free agent next season?it dosent make sense.we cant guarantee his performance nxt season at age 32 but we can still vouch for kolo at 29 to improve,at least for a season
I’ve been thinking about this a bit, and I think AW surprises us and works hard to keep ALL of the defenders we have, save Senderos and Sylvestre.
After this past season it showed we really do not have the depth to bring in Vermaelen and immediately ship out Gallas or Toure. Not right now, anyway. I think Wenger holds onto as much of the back part of the squad as he can this summer and lets the competition of camp/friendlies/Emirates Cup decide for him who the best pairing in the middle will be. If we need to offload someone in January, fine. But I just have a hunch that Wenger will work like the dickens to keep the entire defensive set in place as long as he can.
Remember, Arsene didn’t say anything about selling players at the end of the season…or subtracting in order to add. The only thing he mentioned was adding players.
Djourou prefers to be right sided.
Gallas, Vermaelen, Silvestre all prefer to be left sided. Song is also quite versatile and able to play either side at centre back, although I have mostly seen him play left sided centre back.
Kolo and Gallas are both set in their ways as to which side they prefer.
Gallas and Djourou looks our best partnership.
Silvestre should go for sure but I have reservations as to whether Wenger will sell him so quickly as it would be admitting to a big error of judgement. It makes me wonder why didn’t we just buy another centre back last year?
Can we rotate between Gallas and Djourou as one partnership and Kolo and Vermaelen as the other?
…………………Fabinaski/Almunia…………………
…………………………………………………..
………….Djourou/Kolo………..Gallas/Vermaelen…….
…………………………………………………..
Sagna/Eboue………………………………Gibbs/Clichy
…………………………………………………..
……………………Song/Denilson………………….
…………………………………………………..
………….Denilson/Ramsey……..Nasri/Diaby…………
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
…….Walcott/Simpson………………Arshavin/Vela……
…………………………………………………..
…………………Ade/Bendtner/Eduardo………………
Buying Micah Richards would be a wise decision as he can cover both right back and centre if required as we will lose Eboue and Kolo for a both so the purchase of him would be worth two players effectively.
I meant to say we will lose both Kolo and Eboue for a month, January is it?
yes, January – Feb time
Jav, did you intentionally lave Fab and RVP out of your side there… Just wondering, because to me they are two players who will dictate how this season goes for us. Fab controls our game we don’t play “the arsenal way” without him and I don’t think we can afford to lose RVP and his left foot. Maybe he’ll be lucky this season and put some more in the back of the net instead of on the woodwork!
Castano:
Your an idiot. Gallas clearly is our best defender. Without him we struggled last season. Stop the sentimentality concerning Toure cloud your judgement. Toure has lost his pace and his positioning is inferior to Gallas’s – he has to rely on last-ditch tackles and shot blocking rather than defusing the situation before it comes to that.
[...] acquiring one player this transfer window, and I admit, I expected more players to arrive and said Wenger’s work is probably still far from done when we signed Vermaelen back in [...]