I think a few people might be missing the point a bit here. Certainly the club lie to us all the time, but I don't buy into they made Chesney say this shit to appease us the fans, simply because the Board don't give a flying fuck about us the fans. Chesney is just a gobby fucker, always has an opinion, always wants to be interviewed. He was most likely asked about defensive training and he just gave HIS opinion on it, albeit careful not to rock the boat and get himself dropped. He's hardly likely to say "Aw yeah it's still a bit shit at the back" is he?
What concerns me is the ammount of REAL impact Bouldy might or might not have. Bouldy is very much a Wenger man who won’t rock the boat - I think even his biggest admirers can admit this after reading a few of his previous statements (and by the very fact that Lord Vader appointed him!).
Hugely important then is where Bouldy comes from as a coach. All the youth teams he was involved in play tippy tappy in the same style as the senior team (as is club policy since Arsene took over).
Sure, having a club-wide style of play was not a bad thing in the days of Henry, Freddie, DB10, Pires and Vieira (when that style was fast aggressive attacking football played on the break at speed – with great protection of the CH’s by top class DM’s) but now that our sub-Barca version of tippy tappy has been proven to be shit for us, it’s worrying that the entire club still plays it.
So I’d imagine an emphasis on tippy tappy will still result in the ethos of solid defending being almost an afterthought in the greater scheme of things, no matter how much work Bouldy does. Our defenders are pushed by Wenger to distribute the ball, to play out of trouble - it's as if the more old school methods of defending (for example; Row Z-ing the ball in an emergency) are frowned upon as "beneath" us, and they probably are frowned upon.
The whole ethos at the club is pass at all costs.
Hopefully Bouldy can at least help them with basic stuff like positioning at set pieces etc but I’d be very surprised if he has any more impact than Pat Rice did.
Fingers crossed, huh?
