As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
djhdjh wrote:We shouldn't have signed Sol if he can't play twice in four days. In that position I'm fairly sure he can, especially given the boost the big game against Barca will give him. Got to play him in both.
If we're desperate for alternatives, is my mind playing tricks on me or was it not said that Sagna can play in the middle when we signed him - certainly has a good enough leap on him. In which case you could play him with Eboue at right back in one of the games.
Best point made in this thread!
I've vowed not to moan about Arsene again this season (after what happened at Stoke) but every single Gooner (and journalist) has been saying for months that Arsene needed to buy top class cover at centre half.
Sol is top class but at 35 the old bones start to creak a bit and you can't play Premier League stuff every week.
The pairing for Brum away should be Campbell or Song / Hangeland. A couple of million dangled under Fulham's nose could've gone a long way to guiding us to the Title. Hangeland is a class act and one of the main reasons that Fulham have been transformed from a relegation team.
djhdjh wrote:We shouldn't have signed Sol if he can't play twice in four days. In that position I'm fairly sure he can, especially given the boost the big game against Barca will give him. Got to play him in both.
If we're desperate for alternatives, is my mind playing tricks on me or was it not said that Sagna can play in the middle when we signed him - certainly has a good enough leap on him. In which case you could play him with Eboue at right back in one of the games.
Best point made in this thread!
I've vowed not to moan about Arsene again this season (after what happened at Stoke) but every single Gooner (and journalist) has been saying for months that Arsene needed to buy top class cover at centre half.
Sol is top class but at 35 the old bones start to creak a bit and you can't play Premier League stuff every week.
The pairing for Brum away should be Campbell or Song / Hangeland. A couple of million dangled under Fulham's nose could've gone a long way to guiding us to the Title. Hangeland is a class act and one of the main reasons that Fulham have been transformed from a relegation team.
no, no, no, no. quite a silly post rather than 'the best one'. what a silly thing to say that we shouldnt have signed him if he couldnt play more than 4 games. look at how much sol has already done for this team, his signing is worth that alone. an experienced head at the back is exactly what this team needed going into the final stages of the season. i dont know if you watch players off camera or not, but as i like to record the games and then watch them back again, the number of times that sol is talking to the other 3 defenders is amazing. hes always making sure theyre in the right position, leading by example, and always communicating and getting the other players going.
of course hes not going to be able to play 2 games in quick succession, thats quite obvious given his age, and no one expected him to. if you did thats down to your own naivety. sol was brought in as a back up defender if we were in an emergency and was working when gallas was only supposed to be out for a week. sol was not supposed to be playing this regularly, but as gallas' injury is 'neverending' at the moment, sol is being forced to play a role which he was not bought for.
also, the hangeland argument doesnt hold at all. you cant say that in the real world you will be able to buy a player who is playing first team football and is a valued member of his team and bring him in and expect him to sit on the bench of the off chance that he gets a game. sometimes i think this is overlooked with the whole mentality of "WE NEED MORE PLAYERS!!!" there is no chance in hell that you can expect a first team player to be contempt with sitting on the bench from september to march just so he can fill in one game against birmingham.
djhdjh wrote:We shouldn't have signed Sol if he can't play twice in four days. In that position I'm fairly sure he can, especially given the boost the big game against Barca will give him. Got to play him in both.
If we're desperate for alternatives, is my mind playing tricks on me or was it not said that Sagna can play in the middle when we signed him - certainly has a good enough leap on him. In which case you could play him with Eboue at right back in one of the games.
Best point made in this thread!
I've vowed not to moan about Arsene again this season (after what happened at Stoke) but every single Gooner (and journalist) has been saying for months that Arsene needed to buy top class cover at centre half.
Sol is top class but at 35 the old bones start to creak a bit and you can't play Premier League stuff every week.
The pairing for Brum away should be Campbell or Song / Hangeland. A couple of million dangled under Fulham's nose could've gone a long way to guiding us to the Title. Hangeland is a class act and one of the main reasons that Fulham have been transformed from a relegation team.
MM99 (are you anything to do with M9 by the way?) makes very good points here.
If we had not signed Sol, then with both Gallas and Vermaelen out, we would have had to rely on the following for Centre Back cover -
Silvestre who is not as good as Sol,
Bartley who may be a good prospect seems some way off from regular first team football and is on loan at present,
Song who is decent enough at centre back but who's prolonged absence from midfield would weaken the team,
Sagna or Diaby as out of position desperate measures.
In Sol we have a hard man who can dish it out as well as take it and who spends all game organising and encouraging his colleagues from the benefit of his top level experience.
That is a good addition to the squad plus it was a wages only six month deal.
I Hate Hleb wrote:Wenger says Sol will definitely play against Birmingham.
Well, good news I think, and Wenger knows better than anyone whether he's capable of playing this one and barcelona - or he feels he has no choice! Or Gallas will be back (only kidding )
VforVictory seems like a very familiar poster. Can't quite place it.
djhdjh wrote:We shouldn't have signed Sol if he can't play twice in four days. In that position I'm fairly sure he can, especially given the boost the big game against Barca will give him. Got to play him in both.
If we're desperate for alternatives, is my mind playing tricks on me or was it not said that Sagna can play in the middle when we signed him - certainly has a good enough leap on him. In which case you could play him with Eboue at right back in one of the games.
Best point made in this thread!
I've vowed not to moan about Arsene again this season (after what happened at Stoke) but every single Gooner (and journalist) has been saying for months that Arsene needed to buy top class cover at centre half.
Sol is top class but at 35 the old bones start to creak a bit and you can't play Premier League stuff every week.
The pairing for Brum away should be Campbell or Song / Hangeland. A couple of million dangled under Fulham's nose could've gone a long way to guiding us to the Title. Hangeland is a class act and one of the main reasons that Fulham have been transformed from a relegation team.
no, no, no, no. quite a silly post rather than 'the best one'. what a silly thing to say that we shouldnt have signed him if he couldnt play more than 4 games. look at how much sol has already done for this team, his signing is worth that alone. an experienced head at the back is exactly what this team needed going into the final stages of the season. i dont know if you watch players off camera or not, but as i like to record the games and then watch them back again, the number of times that sol is talking to the other 3 defenders is amazing. hes always making sure theyre in the right position, leading by example, and always communicating and getting the other players going.
of course hes not going to be able to play 2 games in quick succession, thats quite obvious given his age, and no one expected him to. if you did thats down to your own naivety. sol was brought in as a back up defender if we were in an emergency and was working when gallas was only supposed to be out for a week. sol was not supposed to be playing this regularly, but as gallas' injury is 'neverending' at the moment, sol is being forced to play a role which he was not bought for.
also, the hangeland argument doesnt hold at all. you cant say that in the real world you will be able to buy a player who is playing first team football and is a valued member of his team and bring him in and expect him to sit on the bench of the off chance that he gets a game. sometimes i think this is overlooked with the whole mentality of "WE NEED MORE PLAYERS!!!" there is no chance in hell that you can expect a first team player to be contempt with sitting on the bench from september to march just so he can fill in one game against birmingham.
You sound like my 2 year old son - he says no no no no as well. Usually at bedtime!
But joking apart, did you actually read what the original post said? djh said "if he can't play twice in four days" not "if he couldn't play more then 4 games". Sol has been brilliant but a 35 year old body can't take the strains that he will be under if he has to play in 5 or 6 games in quick succession.
And you seem to have missed the most important point facing the top teams today - you need a large squad and a number of top class squad members. It's no surprise that the 2 teams that have done this (Man U and Chelsea) are the 2 teams that have shared every trophy for the last 5 years.
The reason we fell short in 2008 was that our replacements weren't good enough. That's the point that djh and I are making.
At our level players get injured / suspended so a squad member like Hangeland would be able to get himself in the team and he would be playing in the CL rather than the Europa League. And he would be our first choice once Gallas moves on.
Wenger needs to pray that TV5 only misses the one game between now and the end of the season and that Willy gets back fit soon.
Campbell has done far better than I expected but is an accident waiting to happen and Silvestre has lived up to my sub-zero expectations since the day he signed.
This is where our penny-wise, pound foolsh policy could hurt us. It was obvious that at some point a player who plays on the edge as much as TV5 would miss games with suspension or injury. Signing only one centre half whilst letting old fat arse leave and Swiss Tony go out on loan whilst Djourou was crocked for the season was a massive gamble. Hope it pays off but feel it could all implode very suddenly....
Weakening the midfield in a title and CL run in by playing Song, our only decent holding player, at centre half, is not an option. If we do that against a quality side we'll be waiting 10 minutes to win the ball back
Sol is obviously better suited for the Brum game so should be a shoe in for that, but even if he was fit enough to play against Barca i would be worried about him playing in that game, he obviously has great experience and knows how to defend, but against this kind of oppo it would be a 50-50 whether that would be enough to make him a hero or his lack of mobility would make him a huge liability, i'm not sure i would want to take the risk and find out, the problem is Sylvestre doesn't fill me with any great confidence either.
Which leaves Song, i would be tempted to play him at CB against Barca but i think playing Diaby or Denilson at Dcm would be a big mistake so Song is by far our best option at Dcm so it's got to be Sol at cb and lets just hope they play Ibrahimovich who i think Sol will be more suited to dealing with..
One other option i think is a possibility is a five man midfield to stifle Barcas middle if we go with that it's possible we could play Song at CB and both Denilson and Diaby in the middle with Cesc
better than anyone whether he's capable of playing this one and barcelona - or he feels he has no choice! Or Gallas will be back 
(only kidding 
)
