Arsenal will have to wait “until January” before selling central defenders

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“Arsenal have 8 centre backs, we need to sell” has been written countless times over the summer.

As it stands, Arsenal have not sold a single one, with only Konstantinos Mavropanos leaving on loan to VfB Stuttgart in Germany – and he was not one of the “Magnificent Eight”.

So what is happening at the club with regards to our central defender situation?

Gabriel Magalhães was signed from Lille over the summer and William Saliba returned from his season long loan at Saint-Étienne, whilst David Luiz signed a new contract.

Arsenal also made the loan deal of Pablo Mari permanent.

A few people have questioned why Arsenal signed Pablo Mari, and then later went on to sign Gabriel, which pushed Mari down to 4th choice centre back – a role Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi could all have played.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

When Arsenal signed Mari, Gabriel was not on the radar as a transfer this summer.

Arsenal would have been scouting the Brazilian, but with a move likely next summer – so Arsenal agreed a deal for Mari back in January with Flamengo.

Gabriel then came available and Edu clearly felt the club could not afford to miss out on such a prestigious talent – even if it meant having one defender too many.

And that is how we came to sign both Gabriel and Mari.

Luiz, Gabriel, Saliba and Mari looked set to make up Arsenal’s defensive options with Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi all no longer required but none have yet exited stage left. The question is why?

A loan deal seemed to be agreed taking Holding to Newcastle, but the transfer quickly died and Holding found himself starting the first game of the season against Fulham.

Despite having 7 central defenders, Arsenal did not have a single one on the bench. This highlights why no one has left. They are all injured.

David Luiz picked up a knock prior to the Fulham game, but has now returned, whilst William Saliba was lacking in match sharpness having not played since March. A few games with the U23s might be needed for the Frenchman.

Those two joined Pablo Mari on the sidelines who is still recovering from damaging his ankle ligaments back in June. Mari is back in full training but it will be a couple of weeks before he is fully fit.

Without Luiz and Saliba in the short term, and Mari in the mid-term, Arsenal did the sensible thing and pulled the rug on the transfer of Holding to Newcastle. He was needed in Islington.

Holding still has a role to play at Arsenal albeit as 4th or 5th choice centre back.

If he remains at Arsenal this season, he will be back up to Luiz, Gabriel, Saliba and Mari; with the potential to replace Luiz as 4th choice next summer. It all comes down to whether he wants to be a bit-part player at Arsenal, or play week in week out at someone like Newcastle.

For now Arsenal can not afford to lose Holding.

Keeping Holding means they can afford to lose Sokratis.

Sokratis is another who is currently injured.

The club said he sustained a “mild strain to right calf in training”, with an of returning to full training “within the next week”.

You feel once he has recovered, his deal to Napoli will go through.

That leaves Calum Chambers and Shkodran Mustafi.

The problem Arsenal face with the pair is they are both injured, with neither expected back in full training until October.

By the time they are “match fit” it will probably be November.

Injuries mean that they are not available to play (obviously) but also unlikely to be sold.

This puts Arsenal in a situation where we have 5 centre backs (Luiz, Gabriel, Saliba, Mari & Holding), and have an additional 2 that are not fully fit, who can not be sold.

So whilst selling Sokratis will take us down to 7 central defenders, only 3 are fit for selection for West Ham and 2 are not going to be full fit for at least another 6 weeks.

This will result in Arsenal not selling Chambers and Mustafi, and potentially not even registering the later.

Arsenal will then look to loan (or sell) the pair in January.

Mustafi, whose contract expires at the end of the season, could end up making a similar move to Cedric Soares.

A team might decide to pick him up on loan for 5 months, with the pre-contract agreement already in place to make the move permanent in June. A move like that would suit Arsenal, Mustafi and the club loaning him.

Likewise, we might see Chambers move out on loan in January, with an option to buy at the end of the season.

A similar deal could be done for Rob Holding if Pablo Mari has returned to full fitness, with Arsenal then having the option of Chambers, Holding or Mavropanos to return from loan and replace Luiz in 2021.

It might feel like Arsenal have a lot of centre backs at the club right now, but the reality is somewhat different.

Holding will stay, Sokratis will be sold, and not much else can realistically happen until January.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 2 – 1 West Ham

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Arsenal (1) 2 West Ham United (1) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Saturday, 19th September 2020. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-2-3-1) Bernd Leno; Rob Holding, Gabriel Magalhães, Sead Kolašinac, Hector Bellerin; Dani Ceballos, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Willian Borges da Silva, Alexandre Lacazette; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Substitutes: Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pépé, David Luiz, Mohamed Elneny, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock, Matt Macey.

Scorers: Alexandre Lacazette (24 mins), Eddie Nketiah (85 mins)

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 63%

Referee: Michael Oliver

Assistant Referees: Stuart Burt, Simon Bennett

Fourth Official: Darren England

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Chris Kavanagh; AVAR Neil Davies

Attendance: A maximum of 300 attendees due to UK government coronavirus restructions

Our second Premiership match of the new season, and another London derby as well! It is to be noted however, that before we went into the match tonight, that Arsenal have won ten of our past eleven home games against West Ham United across all competitions, and that our opponents have lost thirty-one Premier League matches against us, more than against anyone else. Therefore. one could say that the omens are good for this, our first home game of the season. Let’s go!

The opening stages of the match appeared to be played mostly in our half, as the visitors decided to attempt to try to take the game to us, which came as some surprise to our defenders as they were put under pressure by a lively and creative West Ham United. We struggled to find our rhythm as our midfielders saw their passes go astray and the strikers were forced to come back to win the ball, as opposed to them being in the position to receive it. Bukayo Saka was caught offside when he ran onto a pass that took him into the visitors’ penalty area, and after twenty-four minutes, we took the lead when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ran onto a ball from Bukayo Saka and crossed the ball for Alexandre Lacazette to powerfully head the ball into the net, which unbelievably, was our first shot on target in the match. Of course, there was the usual VAR check when it was thought our captain was offside when he collected the ball, but thankfully the goal stood. This goal certainly fired some much-needed confidence in the team, and suddenly we looked in control. Ironically, there was a VAR check for a possible penalty against Gabriel a few minutes after we scored, but thankfully it wasn’t given as the VAR team decided that the ball didn’t hit him below the T-Shirt area, which is a new rule for this season, of course. In the minutes up to the break, we appeared to lose concentration at the wrong times; literally with a minute or so before first-half injury time, Michail Antonio equalised for the vistors with a well-taken goal from point-blank range. As our players went off for the half-time break, one could sense the feeling of disappointment amongst them, with a collctive realisation that they must do better in the second half.

With no half-time changes, we earnestly started the second half in good heart, with Bukayo Saka’s shot being pushed around the post by Lukas Fabianski for our first corner of the new half. Our passing was better, our movement off the ball suddenly became more urgent overall. Bernd Leno made an amazing save at close quarters from the feet of scorer Michail Antonio and this incident made us realise that danger could be upon us in a heartbeat. Somehow, we appeared to fall back into the same sluggish first half habits that got us into so much trouble; on the hour, Willian was substituted for Nicolas Pépé by Mikel Arteta in order to zip things up a bit. Obviously not, as shortly afterwards, chaos reigned when Michail Antonio’s header bounced off the crossbar, and Bernd Leno dropped the ball, falling awkwardly, but composed himself quickly enough to save a snap shot shot from Jarrod Bowen. That was a close run thing. Eddie Nketiah replaced Alexandre Lacazette to add yet more bite to the strike force with fifteen minutes remaining, which it did. Eventually. With five minutes of normal time remaining, Bukayo Saka released Dani Ceballos on the left, who deftly slotted the ball across the visitors’ penalty area for Eddie Nketiah to make no mistake from six yards. David Luiz was brought on for Bukayo Saka with minutes left of the match to shore things up at the back, and with four minutes’ injury time, his experience was desperately needed out there tonight. Thankfully the whistle was blown soon after, and three points was ours. Thankfully.

Let’s not dwell too much on the why’s and wherefore’s of this plodding, pedestrian, and at times, boring match. Let us just be thankful of the three points that we got here at the Emirates tonight. Yes, it could have gone badly wrong, but it didn’t. The visitors could have had a penalty, but they didn’t. At the end of the day, we scored two goals, we attained sixty-three percent possession, we have a one hundred percent record, and tonight Arsenal are second in the Premiership behind Everton. And that’s it.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Wednesday, 23rd September at 7.45pm (Carabao Cup). Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.

Mesut Ozil & Gareth Bale – The Tale of Two Fallen Stars

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It was West Bromwich Albion away back in 2013 when I first heard it:

How does it feel to be Tottenham,
How does it feel to be small,
You sold Bale,
We signed Mesut Ozil, Mesut Ozil

It always saddened me that the rip-off West Ham Dimtri Payet song took over as the chant for Mesut Ozil. But that day in the course of the Hawthornes, we were bouncing.

On 1 September 2013, Real Madrid announced the signing of Gareth Bale from Tottenham for a then world record fee of £85.1 million. A day later Arsenal Arsenal announced the club record signing of Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid for £42.5million.

It felt very much that Madrid had sold Arsenal their world class German creator to make space for the Welsh winger.

Tottenham had sold Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, which allowed Real Madrid to sell Mesut Ozil to Arsenal.

It was a glorious moment and one which made a mockery of Tottenham’s special relationship with Madrid.

7 years on and both players are at similar stages of their career.

No longer are they world beating stars. Neither is performing to their former world class standard, but both still earn world class salaries. No longer the first names on the teamsheet.

After 7 years, Real Madrid and Arsenal both want rid of Bale and Ozil.

Anyone who has watched the pair will know they are no where near their former glories. Anyone that thinks that they are still capable of playing to the high level they both previously performed at is deluded.

Mesut Ozil was bought for his assists, Gareth Bale bought for his goals. It is interesting that both players peaked in 2015/16 with an identical output; 19 assists for Ozil, 19 goals for Bale.

Neither player has reached that height since – although Bale did have a little renaissance in 2017/18.

From both contributing 19 goals or assists in 2015/16, Ozil and Bale contributed just 2 last season. Clearly neither are as influential on the pitch as they were 4 years ago.

Off the pitch both players have also declined.

Bale has caused a lot of problems in Madrid in recent years, reportedly preferring to be alone on the golf course than with his teammates. He has isolated himself from the team, a salutary character.

Whilst Ozil is still popular amongst his teammates, he separated himself from the Arsenal squad by refusing to take the pay cut. In doing so he became the outlier of the squad.

Both players have also become deeply unpopular with the fanbase. Neither Arsenal or Madrid fans will be upset if Bale or Ozil leave this summer, infact moves will be celebrated by many.

It will be seen as losing a highly paid, underperforming former great player. Someone who fans have never really connected with en-masse, never really bought into The Arsenal or Real Madrid. An individual talent more concerned with themselves than the team they play for.

It is interesting, therefore, that the move of Bale to Tottenham is being celebrated as some sort of coup.

Would the media be celebrating Mesut Ozil moving to Newcastle or Everton on loan? Both clubs would be hammered for signing an expensive player who no longer performs at the top of the game.

Bale and Ozil’s career since moving to and from North London and Madrid in 2013 have taken a similar path.

Very good performances, contributed to their clubs winning trophies, and then demise.

Both are now shadows of the players they previously were, whilst being the top earners at their clubs.

Maybe it is time for a new song?

How does it feel to be Tottenham,
How does it feel to be small,
You signed Bale,
We sold Mesut Ozil, Mesut Ozil

Keenos