Per Mertesacker could be the most important man at Arsenal
Ever since Per Mertesacker was announced as the new Academy coach there has been nothing but positives vibes and today there is even more reason to believe that the former German legend was an inspired pick for the role.
Mertesacker has spent this week back in his homeland, not for a visit to family or a holiday, but rather to see how he can improve the Arsenal youth set up even more.
The 34-year-old has been visiting his former club Werder Bremen to check out their facilities and to see what sort of partnerships can be fostered.
“Werder Bremen has a very good youth system and with Thomas Schaaf (technical director) someone who brings in new structures,” BFG told BILD. “I talked to him and thought about what we can do together as far as players are concerned.”
When asked about the possibility of loaning players out to the German side, Mertesacker added. “Let’s see what happens. That was just an exchange of ideas.”
This shows a man that is preparing to learn from others, a man that is absolutely improving the already impressive Arsenal Academy, a man that wants to put in place the sort of set up that will be the envy of every other Premier League club.
Werder Bremen are not a lower division team, they are a top team, any of our youngsters that are loaned to them will have their prospects increased significantly, just look at what playing in the Bundesliga has done for Jadon Sancho, he is now being talked about as a £100 Million player.
We already have Emile Smith Rowe in Germany on loan at Leipzig and Reiss Nelson at Hoffenheim and with players like Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah and Folarin Balogun showing immense potential there is an absolute need to strike up a strategic partnership with a club prepared to give opportunities to our youngsters. If we get this right – and in Per Mertesacker we have a great chance of that happening then we could have a conveyor belt of high-quality talent coming through to the first team on a regular basis.
This makes Per one of the most important figures at the club, if not the most important, in the long term.
Martin
I’m glad Arsenal are paying attention to loans, the Gnabry one still tastes bitter, hopefully no more of that amateurish dealings.
Nelson, Saka, Amaechi… We have some quality kids coming through and ensuring they have the best loans we can find for them can help us out massively, helping some of them grow as people by challenging them not only in football but new cultures.
Freddie deserves some praise in playing the Emery way and pushing to ready them, I think that has helped our kids and at the right time if we are getting their loans sorted out.
Midkemma, I agree, Freddie Lundberg is doing a fantastic job with the U23’s. They are a joy to watch, with some developing talents.
Nelson had another assist today for England u21.
He is ment to have more talent then sancho But that’s not the full story. Sancho took his decision to leave city seriously and is doing well. Maybe Nelson will benefit being alongside aubameyang and lacazette next season.
Dowell is also a top talent for Everton. If he models his game on basquets we can expect a bring future for him. I wouldn’t mind adding him to our ranks if the opening came.
Bielk also played well. Wanted to win the ball and come out with it. I wonder what his future at arsenal is, but going off today’s performance and his loan spell, he could be a good addition to our ranks next season.
Per and Freddie seem to be doing a good job. It’s good to see ex players having an impact. Be good to see overmar join…
I read Nelson had some disciplinary issue at Hoffenheim last week
He is still unable to increase his goal and assist statistics, but I hope Saka can push him when he is back in London
That is if both of them are not loaned in the next season
Nelson is overrated, the real talent is Sancho and Hudson Odoi
Why is it that Arsenal “fans” are the only fans on the planet who constantly belittle their players whilst simultaneously bigging up their direct rivals?
I bet this guy hasn’t even seen Nelson play a single second since he has been loaned out, nor Sancho (excluding the CL game) and is basing that purely off the price-tag.
d-thatvis because this particular contributor can not look beyond Iwobi.And your dead right.Hiw can he say he is overrated when he doesn’t even see him play.
I’ve seen Nelson play around 20 times for Arsenal youth teams and am on record on this site two years ago saying how good he was and how he “could” progress into a top level player.
Yet someone who has never seen him play feels he is overrated.?
Says it alk
Per is a World Cup winner and Per/Koscielny were the BEST CB partnership for 2 years in a row.
Both would be great defensive coaches
He was always good when playing offside traps, unfortunately he is slow and rarely used his height to score in corners
He showed that he could organize the defense well and hopefully his leadership would help the young CBs to grow
Lichtsteiner says there have been talks about a new contract…. ? he’s unsure as he wants more minutes….
to be fair the man has had good games when he showed his true qualities. But at his age consistency is a problem. he was a short term buy so no contract for him.
I would rather his 90k a week went to someone else… he came.. he tried… for me it didn’t work out… the end ?
I wonder why Arsenal offered an extension, because he definitely cannot keep up with EPL physicality
Maybe it is a lower salary package, but still gonna be a waste of money in my opinion
Better use the money to get Sergi Roberto
We have a big number of youth with very good potential.
Emile Smith Rowe
Reiss Nelson
Bukayo Saka
Eddie Nketiah
Joe Willock
Xavier Amaechi
Then we have players already in 1st team young enough to improve
Héctor Bellerín
Rob Holding
Konstantinos Mavropanos
Lucas Torreira
Mattéo Guendouzi
Ainsley Maitland-Niles
Alex Iwobi
with a number of players leaving this summer plus our already small squad, we will be one of the youngest squad with one of the highest potential next season if we promote this players. emery has to add some good experienced players to have a good mix of youth and proven talents and we have a damn good squad.
The development of young players is without doubt the way ahead for our Club as the money madness which we are witnessing in football today is not eternal.The TV companies can only bleed their customers for so long and oil money will run out sooner than you think.As to Mertz, he has in my view been a very fortunate man who had the ear of our previous Manager and who was paid a fortune in the last two seasons of his career for warming the bench.He was never a great player but he was a good organiser and hopefully he will use this strength effectively in his new role.I wish him well.
“He was never a great player” Yeah, I guess being a world cup winner and conceding the least number of clean sheets for 2 whole seasons really isn’t that much of an achievement.
A man so freakishly slow in the fastest and most physical top league in the world can , OBVIOUSLY, never be world class. Merts was always an accident waiting to happen and it often did happen. He had quite good positional sense but that nowhere near made up for his tortoise type lack of speed. He was by a distance the slowest top level player I have seen in over 60 years watching Arsenal. That is a massive weakness which no amount of wilful blindness on your part can conceal.
Tony Adams.
Can’t slow players be great?
Guess my fav defender of all time isn’t really a great CB…
midkemma, as in so much that really matters, the devil is in the detail. Just as there is all the difference in the world betwen a man who owns NO shoes and a man who owns just ONE serviceable pair, so there is all the difference between a slowish running player and a freakishly slow player, both being, nominally, defenders. To compare the relative merits of Adams, a true Arsenal all time great, to the freakishly slow Merts is totally inaccurate. Except to contrast them. THAT would be fair and THAT is what I do.
I have thought Per a fantastic CB, it was the CM that let the pairing of Per and Kos down, I feel sorry for Arsenal CBs as people will blame them quickly.
I agree totally.Under Wenger we had ZERO midfield cover for the defenders.It sometimes made them look unfairly worse than they actually were.
And as for the BFG-I defy anyone to critisise his commitment to Arsenal Football Club when you recall how he played in the FA Cup final v Chavski after only playing 35 minutes the week before the final in the whole season.He has a makeshift LWB in Oxlade Chamberlin and a young inexperienced Rob Holding next to himself and Monreal in a 3/5.And he DOMINATED the defence that day.
A far better defender than he will ever be given credit for at Arsenal.Cost to us when we bought him was around £11m compared to Mustafi at £35m
Enough Said
Re BFG, Committment and sufficient regular talent are two totally separate things, I suggest! GREAT PLAYERS NEED BOTH , ALL THE TIME!