Premier League Fixtures 14/15/16 September 2013

110% wrote:

Luis wrote:Likely Liverpool 11 vs Swansea:

Mignolet

Wisdom
Sakho
Agger
Enrique

Lucas
Gerrard
Henderson

Moses
Coutinho
Sturridge

Subs: Jones, Kelly, Toure, Skrtel, Alberto, Aspas, Sterling,

Is sturridge fit enough to be drafted into my fantasy football team?

Romford Pele wrote:

blutgraetsche wrote:

Isco Benny wrote:

Xavier wrote:Is Holtby injured?

No, just German.

See, that's why you'll remain in the shadow of your North London neighbours for eternity. They've finally seen the writing on the wall while you continue to miss the boat in typical fashion.

Serge Gnabry to be the next German sensation at Arsenal in near future, you've read it here first.

Blut's ITK

I'll try and dig out this quality volley he scored last night.

blutgraetsche wrote:

Romford Pele wrote:

blutgraetsche wrote:

Isco Benny wrote:

Xavier wrote:Is Holtby injured?

No, just German.

See, that's why you'll remain in the shadow of your North London neighbours for eternity. They've finally seen the writing on the wall while you continue to miss the boat in typical fashion.

Serge Gnabry to be the next German sensation at Arsenal in near future, you've read it here first.

Blut's ITK

I'll try and dig out this quality volley he scored last night.

Seriously, that kid is a gem. I already knew that he was a very talented player as a 16 year old playing for the Suttgart reserves. But for once, moving to the EPL hasn't ruined a promising German youngster, on the contrary, he seems to have developed rather well. Arsenal really have to be commended for their youth setup, despite the (at least IMHO) structural disadvantage of the EPL as far as the reserve teams are concerned (IMHO, it's easier for promising young players to break into the first team if they have to play competitive matches against proper (senior) teams in lower leagues like in Germany, Spain or Italy). Plus, there are other promising young Germans like Eisfeld and Zelalem playing for the Arsenal reserves.

Looking forward to see him get playing time in the first team, hopefully this season. We're spoilt with skilled attacking midfielders these days, but what I like about Gnabry in particular is his killer shot and his lack of reluctance to finish, his confidence basically. In this regard, he's actually a rare breed as far as German attacking midfielders are concerned.

Allez les rouges wrote:

110% wrote:

blutgraetsche wrote:

Isco Benny wrote:

blutgraetsche wrote:

Isco Benny wrote:

Xavier wrote:Is Holtby injured?

No, just German.

See, that's why you'll remain in the shadow of your North London neighbours for eternity. They've finally seen the writing on the wall while you continue to miss the boat in typical fashion.

Serge Gnabry to be the next German sensation at Arsenal in near future, you've read it here first.

Hmmmmmmmm, interesting, given we've traditionally had more Germans than them. You not remember Klinsmann / Freund / Ziege whilst they were stocking up on Frenchies and Africans and finishing 40+ point above us?

They sign Mertesacker and Nemo and suddenly THEY'RE the fucking Teuton legion??

Holtby, by the way, will almost certainly get plenty of time this year. Freund is ingrained into the fabric of this club in a way no Teuton is over at Arsenal. But yeah, all you Germans jump on the Arse bandwagon because they bought Ozil

What? First you say that Holtby isn't in the team because he is German. Then you go on about being the more 'German friendly' club? You're confused.

Still, it's true that Arsene's current love-in for German players isn't because he found his long lost love for his Lothringen roots. It's just that he has seen the writings on the wall. Back in L'Arse days, French players were hot commodity and hence sought after, not just by Arsene, but he was arguably the first doing so extensively. Today it's the Spanish, but Arsene is ahead of the pack again and anticipating the things to come. Meanwhile, Newcastle have caught up with the trend of ten years ago, but that's a different matter.

No offence to Germany (because I really like Ozil), but I really don't rate mertesacker. I had a quick look to see how he was doing so far this season I had saw an interesting stat that says he's made 1 tackle so far in 3 games. It just doesn't sound right for a defender.

Look if you don't watch the games just don't comment until you have an informed opinion.

I was about to look for that gif, cheers Glenn – if that was his only "tackle" so far, not only was it about as clean as you get, but it was almost the turning point of the game, as Arsenal went upfield and scored the solitary goal.

Blut's already made the point and I thought most people had a balanced view by now. Merte's weaknesses are well documented – he is not pacy, agile or a particularly good footballer (though I actually get the impression that his passing has if anything improved lately; it certainly hasn't been successfully targeted). And even I think the German pairing for the WC should probably be Hummels-Boateng (in Badstuber's absence). But right now the Hummels-Merte partnership just doesn't work at international level and Merte getting the nod in the last games proved to be fully justified. I'm a huge Hummels fan but you'd have to admit at the moment that he makes a lot more mistakes than Merte and that the latter, as a defender, is more reliable (right now).

In other respects Mertesacker has been top-notch for Arsenal for a good while, and most fans have appreciated that as he and Koscielny have complemented each other well – his judgement, positioning and reading of the game are all superb. (Sorry to repeat Blut...) And specifically on the tackling issue, he has explicitly never been that kind of player – rarely makes a foul, and has always tried to win the ball through interceptions instead. Why he was a favourite for the Klinsmann/Löw "philosophy" in the first place.

I have to chuckle somewhat at the repeated recycling of Steffen Freund, who seems a nice chap and did great work with the U17 kids, compared to possibly greatest human being of all time Jens Lehmann, who I think it's fair to say was a rather more important player.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/lehmann-big-interview

I hear Deutschland hasn't had as many "legionnaires" at a single foreign team since Inter (I think) in the late Nineties, so of course Blut is welcome as an honorary Kanone.

debaser wrote:

110% wrote:I accept the point of interceptions, headers etc, and I am not saying he should have done 10 tackles per game (although I'd do at least that many playing in central defence as a former midfielder ), but 1 over 3 games just seems strangely low to me. I need to do more research over numbers of "tackles" made by different positions. Maybe tackling was phased out and I didn't notice.

it's DMs who do the most tackles. for CBs it is more last resort when they've got the positioning wrong or not read the game.

there's the stats:

http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3853/Stages/7794/PlayerStatistics/England-Premier-League-2013-2014

0.3 tackles per game seems low for a CB, but it's the same figure for Gary Cahill. and if you go up to 0.7 (i.e. 2 tackles in their first 3 games) there's Terry, Vertonghen, Jagielka, Coloccini, Hangeland.

of course 3 games is a very small sample. If you look at last season stats, most of the best CBs average between 1 & 2 per game (Mertesacker at 1.0 over the season)

110% wrote:

debaser wrote:

110% wrote:I accept the point of interceptions, headers etc, and I am not saying he should have done 10 tackles per game (although I'd do at least that many playing in central defence as a former midfielder ), but 1 over 3 games just seems strangely low to me. I need to do more research over numbers of "tackles" made by different positions. Maybe tackling was phased out and I didn't notice.

it's DMs who do the most tackles. for CBs it is more last resort when they've got the positioning wrong or not read the game.

there's the stats:

http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3853/Stages/7794/PlayerStatistics/England-Premier-League-2013-2014

0.3 tackles per game seems low for a CB, but it's the same figure for Gary Cahill. and if you go up to 0.7 (i.e. 2 tackles in their first 3 games) there's Terry, Vertonghen, Jagielka, Coloccini, Hangeland.

of course 3 games is a very small sample. If you look at last season stats, most of the best CBs average between 1 & 2 per game (Mertesacker at 1.0 over the season)

 

If I click your link and look at defensive and order by tackles I see that midfielders do make more tackles, but fullbacks such as johnson, walker and zabaletta are right up there, 12 tackles over 3 games, even vincent company had 4 tackles in his one game. I think you're right that over a season it's probably not that high for central defenders and it's only 3 games, but I thought it was a valid observation that 1 tackle in 3 games is pretty low, and possibly the start of an interesting discussion on the style of centre backs rather than what Allez is turning it into.

Romford Pele wrote:For Debbie

S4P wrote:Clearly they were never going to be allowed to go 3 games without a win.

Very clever move from the drunk to "retire" - now he can be mic'd up to the referee and influence decisions in a more discrete manner.

debaser wrote:been playing fucking shit. was totally a foul in the build up though