The Arsenal Thread XIX

I'd even go as far as saying the Mert-Kos partnership is top 5 material.

Terry-Cahill / Ramos-Pepe / Chiellini-Bonucci / Dante-Boateng.

I'd even go as far as saying the Mert-Kos partnership is top 5 material.

Terry-Cahill / Ramos-Pepe / Chiellini-Bonucci / Dante-Boateng.

I don't watch enough European football to judge and create a top 10. I'm just saying that it's typical of an Arsenal fan to forget how many goals their defenders and defence have conceded, forget that Koscielny made an error leading to a goal a week ago, and use a good performance against a relegation candidate to come out and say 'oh yeah, he's one of the 5 best in the world'.

Simply for his history of gaffes and errors, there are quite a few I'd take ahead of Koscielny, who has still matured into a fine defender.

Anyone think Nani should be someone we consider? I know he hasn't been doing much the last one or two years but he has potential. If his mind's on it he isn't bad.

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Typical Liverpool supporter response, I'm a bit surprise skrtel isn't mentioned yet. Ofc defenders makes mistakes otherwise how would striker score?

Was about to land here and I see someone suggest that wenger should sign welbeck and remy is best we can hope for

Yh...........

Lol at people including Dante and Boateng as a top 5 CB partnership and not including Godin and Miranda.
Lol at people using Chiellini and Bonucci as a partnership despite Juventus playing a back 3 and not even including Barzagli as part of the three.
Lol at the mention of Ramos and Pepe, just lol, they're good at is ball playing but they are some terrible defenders man for man. Roma's CBs are better than them man for man.

Id say Dante/Boateng is Top 5, got to include Godin and Miranda though.

Barzagli>Chiellini>Bonucci tbh.

Id say Ramos/Pepe are in the Top 5 as well tbh, theyre normally let down by their full backs not covering and having no proper DM in front of them. Theyre both hot headed but that rarely translates into making mistakes in play.

The issue of conceding loads of goals is a systemic issue and as Zurich highlighted the current best defence in the league (Cahill and Terry) shipped 5 goals at home under AVB against us as a result of playing a suicidal system.

Believe what you want about that goal but for me it was Arteta's lack of tracking and the ease in which Kallstrom was bullied off the ball that allowed the goal. Koscielny then failed to clear but he's third in line for the blame.

In terms of 1 on 1s there are few defenders I'd rather have protecting the GK than Koscielny. He's proved this against Messi, Suarez, Aguero, RVP etc.

Like I said top 5 is a stretch but as an individual defender he's top 10 for me.

How can you compare/measure how Ramos-Pepe would fair in Arsenal's XI?
How can you compare CBs in teams that play more cautiously with CBs that are in more adventurous teams?
How can make the assumption that all goals are the fault of the center backs?

Pretty pointless discussion because you can't really measure and compare "CB partnerships" unless you just want to use easily skewed defensive statistics and say "these lot have the most clean sheets, most interceptions and most headers won therefore they are the best CB partnership"

Seems quite dumb imo

Well then what's the point of talking about top 5 partnerships or how good a defender is, or even if a defender is top 10 material?

As said before tactics also shows how good a defender is. I see it as a mixture of defending well under pressure, being able to intercept balls and being good at ball playing.

It's like say United/Liverpool saying they need CBs, but their tactics means that it's so easy to play through them and they're terrible at holding a lead because of how expansive they play and how the midfield don't provide enough cover.

There isn't really a point? If your fullback fails to deal with a cross, is conceding the fault of the CBs? If you mark zonally and your striker loses his marker who gets a free header, is that the fault of the CBs? If someone scores from 30+ yards, is that the fault of the CBs?

Fair enough if you compare them as individuals, or as a back four, but as CB partnerships? very hard to make a list with any real authority

That's true. I believe defence and preventing goals is a unit effort anyway. There are clear obvious partnerships that are better than others though.

Would you take Arsenals partnership over say Smalling and Evans e.g.

As CB partnerships it's hard to look at via stats, bar looking at the difference when they're out the squad to when they're in. Same can be said of strike partnerships though.

his positioning isn't brilliant by any means and he isn't very strong in the air. He gets dragged out a little too much and he can switch off at set pieces. I think he's one of the best in the league but I'd find it surprising if people more knowledgeable than me thought he was top 10 in the world. Far as I'm aware, he's not going to be starting for France at the WC either.

Ah, it's that time to criticise everything that's wrong about Arsenal's defence. Show me a defence that'll do better with Arteta in front of them.



Can confirm that everything here is incorrect. Him and Varane have a beastly partnership for France.

wil reply tomorrow with specific examples backing up everything I said.

Sakho must surely have overtaken Kosc given his play off performance

Not when he played because kos was suspended. He got dropped the next game. What he did was nothing on what Kos has been doing for the past 2 years for France.

It'll be a surprise if Varane and Kos don't start. Failing that, Mangala looks to be next in line.