Arsenal defence is the springboard to success according to Mertesacker
Per Mertesacker has been a tower of strength at the heart of the Arsenal defence this season, displacing the very talented Arsenal fans favourite Laurent Koscielny, at least for the time being. Andy Carroll was expected to be raring to go and a real handful, which he was, but Mertesacker and Vermaelen were strong and composed under pressure and handled the big man better and better as the game wore on.
“What can you do about their goal? Sometimes that happens.
“We have not conceded alot of goals during games this year and most have been from set pieces.
“West Ham had a few chances but we didn’t let ourselves down. We kept our chins up and we have unbelievable quality on the bench which made the difference.
“It (defence) can be the difference. It is crucial for us that the defence is winning more games. We just try to keep that in mind the whole year.”
Arsene Wenger spoke earlier in the season about the impossibility of winning anything when you are leaking goals, even if you have great strikers. Last season Arsenal conceded 49 league goals, while Robin van Persie’s efforts helped us to score 74 times. This season, so far, we have conceded five and scored 13. If you project that from seven games until the end of the season you get figures of 27 conceded and 71 scored.
I know it is early days but assuming those numbers we would score just three less than last season while conceding just over half the amount we did last time. Considering that Giroud has not got going yet, the scoring is looking good. As Mertesacker suggests, if Arsenal can keep being mean in defence, we have got a very good chance.
Only Manchester City and Manchester United scored more than 71 goals last season and they both conceded more than 27. So there you have it, we are going to be champions again. Come On You Gunners!
Mertesacker is so underrated, he is our best def so far and when I saw that we coul of got vertonghen Instead I was pretty annoyed but I was stupid because the BFG is just the best for us right.
Oh and he really helped us get prince poldi so there’s a huge benifit having him.
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yes we underrated him bt he is exceptional
he is very good game reader , powerful in air as well his long legs saved many goals
KOS is Our Hero too bt at the moment Mertesacker is leading
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22 
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mertesacker, koscienly, vermalean.. why would we want anyone else?
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I juƨτ like Mert game by game. He is too experienced.
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hide, the sincere arsenal fans who “always” believed him are coming.
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Lets not give out the hand jobs yet, Nolan had about three chances he wasted and we still look all over the place with zonal marking. But i agree yes we are getting better which is helping our overall performance.
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I think Merts has been most consistent between our CBs. Those long legs have prevented a few dangerous crosses from entering the box and his height has been troubling set-piece headers. If we keep Djourou then I hope we find Squillaci a new home. We can still strengthen in the CB department, but something tells me that would be too demanding towards the Board. A youth player like Miquel could take that spot which I guess is a postive outcome regardless, however if we sell Djourou, who wants more playing time, that could be a different story.
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i miss the days when we were celebrating keeping clean sheets
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Mertesacker has been great lately, but we still look fragile without the ball and there’s still a lot of room to improve.One thing that this last game showed us is that we must keep Walcott, he is fast an can be deadly in front of the goal,he is a decisive player to have and we should not sell him as he can still improve a lot.I hope that Wenger plays him as a striker so that he can show us what he can do.
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7 
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Clean sheets era will come back again. Keep the faith!!
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7 
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Mertesacker is slow but gladly Arsenal plays the way fast forwards can’t run away from him in a long run. What he lacks in speed, he copes with confidence, game intelligence and long reach. How many times you’ve seen him reach with his long legs to a slide tackle inside the box? And pure as a whistle always. What a player!
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Mertesacker has being our best CB so far. I feel rotation between the 3 will play a big part in our challenge for titles. Need to get Szezney back fit. Tougher tests are coming. Yet this start of the season will do wonders for Jenkinson and Mannones confidence/experience. This defence is going to be epic!
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Guys I am glad we are talking about Mert like this because this guy really need to know we are all behind him, same goes for Kos and all the other players, whether they are playing now or not.
I was always a fan of his and this is simply cos as far as last season goes, which was his first, I noticed we conceded less with him playing. I tell u, when he is in the field, I do not panic when the ball come to our end but when he is not, I am always worried. Our defenders need to enjoy the game more and take it easy, drop the pressure and they’ll be fine. I think the panic is cos of our defensive record and the better we keep the ball out of our goal, the better the confidence will grow.
Mert read the game brilliantly, a leader and the guy is always very calm. We will be just fine I tell u. I am sure Wenger will find a way to give all 3 games, Kos, Verm and Mert are all top top defenders. Gibbs and Jenk too. Hope he does get to share games with Sagna to keep his progress and confidence. Santos is safe, he will get better defending and the guy is a brill winger too, he might even do well as a striker lol
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i really hope schezeny will back and get better than last season like David Seaman and Lehnman
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Isn’t it amusing (sad). last season Mertesacker was ‘ useless ‘ now he is great.
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Must say that our defence looks alot more calming with the BFG in it and that he is great at reading danger and intercepting also his height is a big plus in especially the PL, some critics believe him to be a little slow but i dont think that he is as with the lenght of his legs i think that he covers alot more ground than the average player coz for every one step he takes adds up to two paces from his opponent
About the W Ham goal that some pundits thought that he shared the blame, i do not subscribe to this as if he had ran out to close the player down the ball would have been played in for a sitter, i think he done the right thing in making it very difficult to pick out a player and also making it very difficult to score coz lets face it nine times out of ten your goal keeper will not be beaten from that angle, it was one of them perfect strikes that no keeper could stop.
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The problem with our defence has carried over from last season and the season before that. Yes as a Unit we do look stronger this season and the possistioning of the back 4 in general is very good. The problem however isn’t the back 4 and last season the back 4 was only part of the problem.
Everyone knows we play with a high line which means any ball in behind is catchable to a striker with decent pace. Why do we play a high line? so we can squeeze the pitch and dominate games with possession and not let the opponents over the half way line. Im all for playing with a high line i think when do correctly its fantastic however you can not play a high line without pressure on the ball when the other team has it. Last season time and time again players had time on the ball with no one busting a gut to close them down, this allows them to look up and play a pass in behind our defence now if somebody’s closing them down at pace then that pass becomes extreamly hard to pull of because they’ve got less time and usually end of with the head down.
This year i’ve not seen a great deal of improvement in that regard in the west ham game there was a few times they ran straight through the middle of the pitch because our midfield was too far apart. In attacking terms were much better then last season the fluidity of our play is fantastic and some of the one touch passing has been splendid even though it hasn’t lead to anything other that us retaining possession. Suppose it helps when we’ve purchased one of the best playmakers in world football!.
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Per rocks!
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