**Summer Transfer Thread: News, Rumours and Speculation**

Gallas is as good as he was at Chelsea, he is infact a fantastic CB, at his best, he is better than Toure but not by that much. He was at his best for large portions of large year and I think he had one bad game last year. He was however frequently paired up with Song/Djourou/Silvestre who were damn awful. When Toure got to first team again they made a great pairing. As for Sporadic paddy fits, please name a SINGLE occasion he has had a paddy DURING a game and as a result directly led to a loss or even a bad performance? He's a complete professional during a game and I've never once seen him not try his best during a game. Everyone has bad games and everyone makes mistakes. Vidic had more outright terrible games last season than Gallas.

ANy Arsenal fan who pretends Toure is significantly worse than Gallas and has been much worse in the past 2 years is dreaming though, firstly, last year we had the joint least defeats(gah, I hate saying last year when its really two seasons ago, doesn't feel right saying the year before last till this season is actually underway though :p ). He was barely first team till mid Jan/Feb, from there he had 2-3 great months. Before they he was sporadically in and out of the team and wasn't at his best, but certainly wasn't anywhere near poor.

In all those games you mentioned, the 4-4's, the Chelsea game, well the Chelsea game Gallas I'm sure was injured for and Toure might not have played either, but still most of those goals, and those against Utd, were lack of midfield cover. Sorry but Terry, Alex, nore Vidic/Rio can defend against 5 opposition players in their box with only 2CB's and probably one full back as usually one fullback will be out wide trying to block a cross. 3 vs 5, the maths simply doesn't work, its not Gallas/Toure, or even Silvestre/Djourou's fault that they've been left to cope with too many players.

But Toure, Richards, Bridge, Dunne would be a very good back four no matter what people delude themselves into, Dunne without Onoura alongside him shone in internationals right at the end of the season, he was great midseason in games without Onoura/Zabeleta/Ball involved. Those 4 might not be the worlds best in each position, but so what, they are still very good defenders. Richards the second he was switched to right back was a massive offensive threat, pacey, strong and good defensively. Bridge while not fantastic is pretty solid. Dunne is very good when paired with someone good and Toure might not be in the top 10 in the world, but is still very competant.
 
B1gbeard said:
So in the Liverpool game our defence was as bad as theirs?

You are just cherry picking though of course. I could pick out games where the other top 3's back four have defended shambolically. Would that mean much?
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Cherry picking? 4 games not enough to prove my point? Ok well I can easily name at least another 4 whereas you will struggle to do likewise with us, Chelsea and Liverpool.

Sure Liverpool didn't cover themselves in glory either that night but I think you'd struggle to find another game like that form them last season. Not to mention if memory servers me right it wasn't Liverpool who failed to hold a lead on two occasions during the last 20 minutes or so (3 times in total over the course of the game)
 
Tom84 said:
Re-watch the 4-4 game against Liverpool and the two Semi Final's against us and tell me your defence wasn't all over the place. Oh and while you're at it watch the 1-4 defeat against Chelsea as well.

As for Gallas compare him to when he was at Chelsea and he's a shell of the player he once was.
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The semi finals aren't a very good example.

After the two quick goals (one from a slip) Arsenal had to go for it, so there was no point holding players back to defend.

This is why I don't get why the press were creming over Ronaldo and Man U before the final.
 
ManU had some poor defensive displays last season. Liverpool at home. I seem to remember them conceding 3's and 2's on a number of other occasions.

All this tells us though is that ManU, Liverpool and Chelsea have stronger defenses than Arsenal, but we kinda already knew that.

None of those games you mentioned highlight that Arsenal's defence is all over the place. It highlights it has issues (mainly in midfield) but in the grand scheme of things it was still top 5 in comparison to the rest of the PL.

Incidentally before those games mentioned; the second semi, the Liverpool game and the Chelsea games, we conceeded 9 in 22. Doesn't seem so bad.
 
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Gooner14 said:
So I could use 4 games where we kept clean sheets, does that prove we have the best defence ever...
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The entire of last season there was a question mark over Arsenal and their inability to hold onto leads and close games off so no you naming x amount of games against lesser teams where you managed to not concede doesn't prove anything as when you score 4 goals away from home and still manage not to win a game shows in itself there are glaringly obvious problems in defence. Likewise when you're 2 goals up with minutes to go at home and end up drawing (conceding 4 goals again on the night)

B1gbeard said:
None of those games you mentioned highlight that Arsenal's defence is all over the place. It highlights it has issues (mainly in midfield) but in the grand scheme of things it was still top 5 in comparison to the rest of the PL.
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If 4-4 at home to Spurs, 4-4 (despite leading twice in the final 20 minutes) away to Liverpool, literally being all over the place at OT and had it not been for your keeper the score line would have shown as much doesn't prove to you that your defence wasn't all over the place at times last season then I give up as you're obviously so incredibly blinkered I'm wasting my time.
 
Tom84 said:
The entire of last season there was a question mark over Arsenal and their inability to hold onto leads and close games off so no you naming x amount of games against lesser teams where you managed to not concede doesn't prove anything as when you score 4 goals away from home and still manage not to win a game shows in itself there are glaringly obvious problems in defence. Likewise when you're 2 goals up with minutes to go at home and end up drawing (conceding 4 goals again on the night)



If 4-4 at home to Spurs, 4-4 (despite leading twice in the final 20 minutes) away to Liverpool, literally being all over the place at OT and had it not been for your keeper the score line would have shown as much doesn't prove to you that your defence wasn't all over the place at times last season then I give up as you're obviously so incredibly blinkered I'm wasting my time.
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Now you are saying at times. If you mean that in certain games, and lets be honest, those games were in the minority over the course of a 60+ game season, then yes, I agree.

In a very small amount of games, our defence (although as we keep pointing out this is as much to do with the holding midfielder not knowing his job than anything) was a shambles. Thats a fair cry from your much more general statement though to be fair.

Holding onto leads is also a bit of a myth, like most stuff. Last season the games we lost we didn't score first and looking at the score draws we scored late. If you look at just the Spuds and Liverpool games then yeah. But thats like, two games.
 
Gooner14 said:
Isn't that exactly what you have done?
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So being 3-1 up against Spurs and then 4-2 up against Spurs and ultimately drawing 4-4 doesn't prove anything?

Being 1-0 up then 3-2 up then 4-3 up and ultimately drawing 4-4 doesn't prove anything?

Being beaten 1-4 over two legs when in truth had it not been for the keeper could have been the score in the first game alone doesn't prove anything?

Losing 1-4 at home despite all the motivation to bounce back after a European Exit doesn't prove anything?

I would say all 4 (not to mention games like being 2-0 up at Villa park and ending up drawing 2-2) tells a lot more about your defence that managing to keep clean sheets against the likes of Stoke to be honest.

Arsenal have got massive problems in defence and to think otherwise is just baffling to me to be honest. Wenger must agree to a certain extent seeing as your only signing to date is indeed a central defender.
 
Moving away from the Arsenal/their defence debate...

Everton defender Joleon Lescott has told the club he wants to leave but is yet to hand in an official transfer request, BBC Radio 5 live understands.

Lescott is wanted by big-spending Manchester City, who have twice failed in their bid to sign the 26-year-old.

City have offered £15m and £18m for the England player but Everton are desperate to keep him.

Everton's stance may be weakening after it was revealed they are in talks with Arsenal centre-back Philippe Senderos.

A fee of about £6m is thought to have been discussed for the Switzerland international but an Everton club source has claimed the centre-back is not being signed as a direct replacement for Lescott.

Everton manager David Moyes has always said that no player would leave the club without his approval.

City have already signed Gareth Barry, Roque Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure in a summer spree that has resulted in them spending about £80m.

They also recently failed with a bid to sign Chelsea centre-back John Terry.

Lescott joined Everton for £5m from Wolves in 2006 and has been capped seven times by England.
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I don't think you can compare Toure/Gallas, as their styles of defending slightly differ.

Anyway, Toure on his very best day was shadowed in comparison to Adams/Campbell, now that is fact.
 
Pigeon_Killer said:
A back four of Bridge, Toure, Lescott and Richards isn't going to worry any team with a decent attack. City still need to spend a wedge to compete with the top teams for the top trophies.
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Depends how they gel; Lescott is decent, and if Toure can recapture some of his old motivation he's a good player as well. Richards is potentially top drawer, although needs a lot of work, and Bridge is solid if unspectacular. If it works it could be great. If not it could be dire. Much like City!
 
Tom84 said:
So being 3-1 up against Spurs and then 4-2 up against Spurs and ultimately drawing 4-4 doesn't prove anything?

Being 1-0 up then 3-2 up then 4-3 up and ultimately drawing 4-4 doesn't prove anything?

Being beaten 1-4 over two legs when in truth had it not been for the keeper could have been the score in the first game alone doesn't prove anything?

Losing 1-4 at home despite all the motivation to bounce back after a European Exit doesn't prove anything?

I would say all 4 (not to mention games like being 2-0 up at Villa park and ending up drawing 2-2) tells a lot more about your defence that managing to keep clean sheets against the likes of Stoke to be honest.

Arsenal have got massive problems in defence and to think otherwise is just baffling to me to be honest. Wenger must agree to a certain extent seeing as your only signing to date is indeed a central defender.
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And we've sold two on.

Whats baffling is that you keep getting hit with the fact hammer but come back with the sort of stuff that you hear spouted on Sky every week.

All you have done is highlight that in an amount of games you could count on one hand (mostly against the top three) we've been poor defensively, while for the other 60 odd we've been fine. That seems consistently good to me. Maybe I've got the values of 6 and 60 around the wrong way.

As its dull at work I've had a look back and can find around a dozen games spread across the last two seasons where we conceeded leads and either drew or lost. In some of those games we didn't actually score first and in some the lead changed hands once or twice.

The facts show that overall we have defended fine in 90% of our games but have performed well below par in a very small amount of games against teams stronger than us. I can't see where the massive problems are sorry.
 
I can't believe you have struggled defensively against consistently good sides. That's appalling :rolleyes:

I don't know how you sleep at night.
 
I'm not arguing the defence is the problem, but the fact that you used 4 games as an example. I can use 4 games to show we have failed to concede a goal. Overall the defence was poor I accept that, nowhere near as you have made out.

Several of those games you have mentioned neither the first choice LB or first choice CB partnership actually played.
 
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