Now I know many more esteemed bloggers than I have broached this topic, but I wanted to put a different slant on the subject.
Following Saturday’s successful but ultimately disappointing performance, questions regarding our midfield have raised their ugly heads again.
Arsene chose the odd but partially enforced formation of 4231, playing the much maligned midfield shield of Arteta & Flamini in front of our makeshift defence, and subsequently our performance suffered. We were disjointed & bereft of ideas, Santi had one of his worse games in an Arsenal shirt, though in my opinion this was partially to do with the lack of forward thinking from our TWO defence midfielders. The majority of our attacks came from wide or individual skill from Alexis, which meant Welbez was dropping deep or wide to pick up the ball & therefore not in prime position if we got past the Mackham 4 by 4 defensive machine.
All in all a bad day at the office, a good result and thank Bergkamp for Alexis.
What? You may ask, has this got to do with Cesc? Well, as we know, Arsene didn’t re-sign Fabregas because we have an abundance of ACMs at our disposal: Özil, Santi, Rambo, Jack, stating that he didn’t want to stifle the progress of the latter & that the former are 2 of the worlds best.
And he didn’t sign a defensive midfielder because he presumably believed that Mikel & Mattieu could do the job.
Well, this is where, I believe, Cesc would have been a perfect fit.
Forget the AC/DC (attacking central / defensive central (midfield)) argument. Cesc should have be brought to populate the ‘Deep Lying’ Midfield role, for the want of a better term, ‘The Quarterback’.
The defensive midfield position has evolved, gone is the Makalele role. No more do you need a player who job is to destroy & pass it 5 yards to a more skilful player, now, you have to, as John Barnes so eloquently put it ‘Defend & Attack’, break up play & instantly start the next offensive movement.
Cesc, Mikel & Matt all average around 2.5 tackles per game. All 3 have about a 90% pass success rate, but the major differences are that Cesc averages 3.5 key passes a games, has 10 assists & 1 goal to his name. Mikel & Matty; average 0.4 & zip assists or goals
Cesc’s purchase would have allowed Arsenal to play the ‘Inverted Christmas Tree’ formation, 4123, With the aforementioned pulling the strings & holding the fort at the base, 2 from 4 orchestrating the attacks from midfield & ‘DAT’ front line of Danny, Alexis & Theo scaring the bejesus out of any defence.
Oh well it’s too late now, best we find someone else in January to be our Quarterback.
But I ask you this:
Who’s gonna throw the Pizza to celebrate the 10th anniversary of PizzaGate when we travel to Old Trafford, now Cesc is a dirty Chav?
English by birth, Australian by choice. Traffic Engineer, Arsenal ST Holder, Sun DreamTeam Winner, Writer on @GunnersTown, Depeche Mode, Welcome to my world…
Steve, if Cesc could play in that Pirlo role, Barcelona would have never let him go. Also the number of tackles per game, alone, cannot be treated as a yard stick to gauge the defensive capability of a player. Am sure that the areas or opponents that Matic/mikel dispossess or tackle are quite different from Cesc.
probably this debate of whether Wenger passed on him would go on till Ozil returns to top form again, which am sure he will during the business end of the season.
Guys I truly mean this when I say it that I simply cannot stomach to hear the name Chelsea let alone watch them this season. Cesc should not be there no way no how. He wanted to come back and arsene in his ignorance said no. We could have gotten 20mil or there about for Caz so cesc would have cost feck all and is there any one of you who could truly say cesc is not a big upgrade on Caz? And as for stifling our two going cm, well Ramsey I fear had his one good season last year (I hope I’m wrong) and young jack is taking his time living up to his potential. I hope we don’t realise that that’s all it was potential and realise that to allow him fail with loads of game time we turned our noses up at one of the best midfielders in the world. And as I’m not English I don’t have the automatic love of the young British lad who miggtbbe the next big thing I can say this with all honesty that even if jack lives up to his potential (again I truly hope he does) I still feel he will not be as good as cesc who is a Goober at heart.
Who’s gonna throw the pizza I hear you ask? It’s dat guy Welbz of course. LvG needs a good slice of pizza slapping him on the face and sliding down his crooked neck. That’s for disrespecting/discarding Welbeck. Totally agree with ya bout Cesc. Shame how things turned out.