Arsenal: The Case for the Defence

With the international break continuing and no meaningful football matters to write about I'll continue with my assessment of our squad for this season. First of all though I have to say that I'm delighted that the international games have been switched to Fridays and Tuesdays as it means we will get our players back a day earlier than on previous occasions. I know the boss has called for the players to be returned to their clubs earlier for many years and I'm sure he will be delighted with the results at last.

With the goalkeepers taking so much longer than I anticipated yesterday I had to leave it at just that but I will get through all the defenders today. First of all we have to break it down into the full backs and the centre backs and then look at how the players play together as a unit.

At right back our first choice is Sagna and he's now going into his fourth season at the club. He was a revelation in his first season as we challenged for the league and there was no better player in that position in the Premier league in my opinion. He suffered a bad ankle injury away to Chelsea towards the end of that season and it took him a long time to recover from it completely. It wasn't helped by the death of his brother early the next season and his form certainly suffered but he certainly has the ability to regain that form of 2007/8. 

At the moment he has a tendency to be caught too far forward at times and it means a centre back has to come out to cover him and we are left exposed at times. I think that both full backs are under orders to get further forward and that is part of the reason that he is sometimes caught out of position. When it comes to pulling in and sweeping behind his centre backs for a cross from the left he is very capable and seems to know exactly what he is doing which is very important.

The immediate replacement for Sagna is Eboue and despite the fact that he had some very well documented problems in the past he has now become a cult figure with the fans. He got his head down and worked very hard after he was booed off the pitch against Wigan and he proved that the fans will forgive anything as long as the player involved tries his best and shows that he cares. He's a good replacement for Sagna but his positioning can be very suspect at times and I think he prefers playing in a more forward role.

With Sagna the current right back for France on one side we have Clichy on the other side who is the second choice left back for them behind Evra. Again he has played better for us in previous seasons and had his problems with injury but the signs are that he has put the injuries and bad mistakes behind him and he looks like he will return to the form that had him rated so highly not so long ago.

Clichy has a very able deputy in Gibbs and we are lucky to have such a talented player coming through the ranks. Despite the fact that he can't get into the Arsenal team he now seems to have won himself a place in the England squad and he is pushing Clichy very hard to get into our team. I would say that Clichy has more to offer defensively at the moment as long as he doesn't overdo things on the ball but Gibbs certainly seems to offer more going forward and I'm looking forward to seeing him get a run in the team at some stage. 

When it comes to the centre of our defence things have changed very quickly in the last year. This time last season Vermaelen was the new boy who was taking the league by storm but now he is seen as the rock that our defence is built upon. He had a fantastic first season and he was the top scoring defender in the Premier league and we can only hope that he will get even better this season. At times he does have a tendency to get too far forward and attack the ball in the opponents half which has led to us being badly exposed on a few occasions but he is a future captain of the team in my opinion and I think he should be vice captain right now.

With Djourou at the club quite a few years now he has never really got a long run in the team due to injury and other players being ahead of him in the pecking order. Last season was seen as possibly his breakthrough season but he missed all of it through injury and he is injured already this season as well. It's very hard to tell how good he is as we have never had a chance to see him play for a decent spell in the team but his country rate him very highly and he has a number of caps for Switzerland.

The other two options at centre back are both brand new signings and we have seen Koscielny play twice so far but Squillaci has only just joined us and we have yet to see him play. Koscielny looks like he is a very good tackler and he can read the game very well too. Added to that he is a good header of the ball but his problem would seem to be that he isn't quite up to the challenge physically yet as was shown by Diouf against Blackburn last weekend. He has said he knows he has to bulk up to play in the league and I think when he does that the boss may have uncovered another gem in the Vermaelen mode.

I haven't seen much of Squillaci but from what I have seen and heard he seems like an ideal candidate to play in the Premier league. At 30 he's more or less at his prime and he can offer experience and strength to the defence and hopefully pass on a few hints to the younger players. He does have a bit of a history with injuries but he has also won trophies at every club he has played for and a little bit of a winning mentality might go a long way.

As a unit the first choice back four still have some work to do to compliment each other but they are all good footballers and with enough time spent on the training ground they can achieve that. If they can also manage to get Almunia to be an intrical part of that unit all the better but I'm not sure if we will be that lucky. 

There are a few other young defenders on the fringes of the first team squad who are very bright prospects for the future too. Kyle Bartley is on loan at Sheffield United for the season and there are high hopes for him. Havard Nordtveit is another player that is thought very highly of and he can play in central defence or at right back and with Djourou so injury prone he might well get a chance at some stage this season. Armand Traore has joined Juventus on loan for the season and it's hard to see him winning a place in the squad when he returns but if he can learn enough about defending in Italy that might change as he certainly offers a threat going forward.

I've always found the official club site to be slow when it comes to Arsenal news but they must be doing something right as the monthly page view figure passed 50 million for the first time and the amount of unique users was just under four million which was also a record for the club site.

We have 16 players away on international duty during the current break and 12 of them are with senior teams and another 4 with under 21 teams. With quite a few international players out injured we could easily see a figure of over 20 Arsenal players away with their countries and that's an awful lot of players to have to worry about for two international games.

If the current stories doing the rounds are to be believed the boss did all he could on deadline day to sign a new keeper but he was rejected by Fulham in his pursuit of Mark Schwarzer, Shay Given decided to stay and fight for his place at Man City(and pocket more money) and Stoke declared that Amir Begovic was not for sale. Even if Begovic had been for sale I can't imagine that Stoke RFC would have wanted to sell him to Arsenal.

Here's  a look at the man who has now become our most important defender.

See You Tomorrow.