Yes Cahill is the main CB you hear mentioned lately. Given what just happened to our injury list, I'd take him now in a heartbeat. We're down to Mustafi as our only fit senior CB. That is a sobering thought. (I'm leaving out out Mavropanos because he's still an untested kid and he's not even 100% back from injury himself. I'm also leaving out Monreal because he's not been fit enough to start at his favored LB position, let alone at CB where I've never really thought he was anything other than a short stop-gap) I suppose Evans & Jones are out of the question?
I don't know if you've noticed, but every single one of our defenders get killed playing the high line like we do
So Valverde just confirmed Suarez. Barring anything ridiculous, he's our player. If we can end the window with one of Perisic, Carrasco, or Nkuku, without buying any of them on a permanent, Raul will have done solid business.
If we can get a couple of loan deals then I would call this a success. Remember we made do with Benayoun and Kalstrom.
I mean, who are we going to loan for defense? Cahill? At this point I would rather just upgrade in the summer if that's an option. We can actually add some attackers that better fit the system this window. We can try to outscore our way to the Champions League.
Outscoring our way to top 4? I think you're dreaming a bit there. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong of course. If we don't qualify for UCL, then we might not have much money to "upgrade in summer". I think the short-term mission to qualify is strategically vital at this point. Not to mention for the manager to preserve his job, and get a total of 3 transfer windows under his belt, which is commonly cited as what's needed for a new project. p.s. 3 mos ago I wouldn't have wanted Cahill or Evans or ?? But now, with Mustafi being practically all we've got, it's a different ballgame.
The defense problem is more a systematic problem than a personel problem, even with all the injuries. Emery said it himself that his plan is to give our defenders confidence, and make our team more compact. He's failed to do that so far. If he can do that, then our defense would be that much better even with no reinforcements.
The problem is that a new defender can come in and do a job, but it will take a few games to get a hold of what emery wants—where the fullbacks will be, how high a line, when to play out, when to push up, when to drop, etc. I think this is why he plays xhaka as Aux CB often—not for his defensive characteristics, but because he has the most minutes in the squad and knows what is going on. So, I wonder if he might just play xhaka/mustafi there until Kos comes back. Mavropanos, lischsteiner and Nacho as cover or for a back 3 as well. I’m not opposed, but is Cahill or some other rusty loaner going to be much better than a player who knows the system?
OK, there's that. But the quality/experience level of the players is a vital foundation for achieving the system. And I don't think there's any Arsenal fan or pundit who feels that we have adequate quality in our defense at this moment in time. To put it slightly differently, you're very unlikely to make a beautiful system work with crappy components.
Don't agree. Anytime we get somewhere close to a defence that looks first team with a game or two under its belt it looks good enough. The back 5 was actually pretty good until Holding went down. The back four we just lost was also looking very good as well.
Good point. One which we've all considered. But I'd bring in a well-chosen vet, and take my chances. I don't know if Cahill is that man, to fit into our system quickly (that's what our scouting team is for) but I think they are taking a massive gamble if they don't bring in at least one CB reinforcement, including short-term loanee, and then in the summer someone more permanent.
That's my point. We keep using up those players. And what we're left with is Mustafi, Xhaka, Monreal, Mavropanos & Lichsteiner for CB... not one of those you would call a natural and solid CB. (Mavro being the big wildcard, but do you want to bet the ranch on him?)
Screw it. If he's ready health-wise, let Mavropanos have at it. If nothing else it will give us an even clearer picture of what we need to do in the summer one way or another.
I seeing something a bit heartbreak high Young greek immigrant from the wrong side of the tracks trying to make his way in the big city
Looks like we may little or no choice now. Mustafi just came up lame in tonight's match. He's struggling to run it off. There will have to be at the very least some lingering effects on his fitness. Y'all still agree with Emery that we should bring in wingers and no central defenders?
Emery said they were trying to bring in a CB didn’t he? I just doubt there are many decent options available on loan at least. I’ll take Cahill though as insurance for sure. At the moment I’m very concerned with RB from an attacking point of view. Jenkenson can cross and run and isn’t a terrible defender, but going forward he and Lichtsteiner just kill everything down that side. Almost nothing comes off through RB without bellarin. It got to the point where emery kept jenko back and pulled Ramsey and laca over there to link up with Auba. Meanwhile chambers scored a cracker today. He’s turning into quite a decent DM I think. That’s good for us either as a future option or for resale value. We just need to scrap through this season, focus on EL unless Chelsea and spurs dump it. I’m confident we will take another step in the summer and be more competitive next season.
Actually the last thing I recall him saying in a presser about CB specifically was to play down the idea of bringing someone in. He did that typical manager thing that Wenger did a lot... he said that we have quite a lot of talent in that position, including Mavropanos who's just coming back from injury. But that comment came before we lost Sok for a month and Kos for some perhaps less clear amount of time, maybe shorter? And certainly it came before Mustafi did something to his ankle tonight and toughed it out for a long spell. If they do literally nothing about this obvious decimation in our defense, I will lose significant faith. Just sayin. Edit: I just learned that AMN picked up some sort of knee injury either in the last match or training, which is why he wasn't in the squad today. As he was poised to be our primary RB during the run in, that's surely a bit of a worry. Hopefully it's not too bad, but just another blow to our back line. When will it end??
Just watched Arsenal World show. And it threw a little light on this year's window, here are some January signings from the recent past: Campbell Eboue Walcott Adebayor Monreal Aubameyang