Our goals conceded total for this season in the league was only 1 more than the lowest 2 teams and level with the winners, Leicester. Our midifeld is reportedly being strengthened and we are in desperate need of a top striker.
I would prefer we spend our money on these areas with a new CB being low down the priorities. Given a choice, I would rather spend the extra on a better striker than split it between a striker and CB. At the moment we have Kos, Per, Gabby and Chambers. With a stronger midfield in front of them they are more than adequate. We need to focus more on improving our midfield and attacking options.
Just my opinion of course. We know Arsenal are reluctant to spend more than they can get away with on transfers. How do you justify spending money on a CB?
Do we really need a CB?
posted on 21/5/16
Not a priority but definitely a position we can improve on and there are probably 50+ CBs out there who are better than Gab or Mert.
But we won't fail next year if we don't strengthen at CB, we'll fail if/when we don't sign a competent CF - that has to be our priority (for the 10th? transfer window in a row).
posted on 21/5/16
Koscielny seems to pick up injuries regularly.
Mertesacker is 32 in a couple of months, picking up injuries, and seemingly lost the trust of Wenger.
Gabriel doesn't look good enough.
Chambers is yet to convince - and is a bit of a utility player.
Yes, I think we could definitely do with another CB.
Cech kept 16 clean sheets, Ospina 2 in the league this season. In the other 20 games we conceded 36 goals - quite an alarming number.
Also conceded a lot in Europe - 5 v Bayern, 5 v Barca over 2 legs.
Obvious room for improvement there.
Games like those, and United, Liverpool and especially Southampton show the improvement that can be made. Mistakes in those games from the CBs are plentiful.
Obviously team set up and a stronger midfield would help, but to suggest the back 4 is the best we can have is not true.
posted on 21/5/16
Would definitely prefer buying a defender from the prem.
Like someone said, he doesn't needs to be a world class defender, just a solid top class one
posted on 21/5/16
I think CB is a priority. Kos was poor last season, Per isnt what he used to be and Gabriel is garbage. We need a top class CB imo. Sell one of Per/Gabriel and have the othe other compete with Chambers for the first back up
posted on 21/5/16
Would keep per for another season. He still form a solid partnership with koscielny.
But definitely need one more
posted on 21/5/16
Per is on big money and won't want to warm the bench next season which seems likely. I can see him being sold this summer
posted on 21/5/16
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 33 minutes ago
Koscielny seems to pick up injuries regularly.
Mertesacker is 32 in a couple of months, picking up injuries, and seemingly lost the trust of Wenger.
Gabriel doesn't look good enough.
Chambers is yet to convince - and is a bit of a utility player.
Yes, I think we could definitely do with another CB.
Cech kept 16 clean sheets, Ospina 2 in the league this season. In the other 20 games we conceded 36 goals - quite an alarming number.
Also conceded a lot in Europe - 5 v Bayern, 5 v Barca over 2 legs.
Obvious room for improvement there.
Games like those, and United, Liverpool and especially Southampton show the improvement that can be made. Mistakes in those games from the CBs are plentiful.
Obviously team set up and a stronger midfield would help, but to suggest the back 4 is the best we can have is not true.
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Completely agree with this. Even if you consider our current crop of CBs to be good enough to challenge domestically and Europe (which I personally don't) there's the issue that our two first choice CBs are the wrong side of 30, and neither of our back-ups have proven themselves ready to step up.
There's a real risk that we could be forced to completely overhaul our starting CB pair over the next year or two, and such partnerships can often take time to develop. As far as I'm concerned, we might as well start to phase a new CB in now.
And whilst I understand what the OP says about us not being relatively that bad, what we have to appreciate is that this has been a terrible Premiership season in terms of quality, with all the so called 'big teams' having poor seasons by their standards. If we want to establish ourselves as one of the top teams in Europe, I think we have to aspire to be better than the standard set in the league this season.
posted on 21/5/16
Cech and Ospina are main reason for so few goals conceded.
Shots against Bournemouth 436 shots 154 on target 67 goals conceded vs Shots against Arsenal 452 shots 152 on target 36 goals conceded.
posted on 21/5/16
If the rumours of Rafa Varane being available are true then surely we should be looking to sign him. If not him then defo Virgil Van Dyke who we should have got before he went to Saints.
If money wasn't an object I would sell Per and Gabriel and sign VVD and Varane and have them with Kos compete for the 2 spots.
posted on 23/5/16
Van Dyke 😂