Replacing Gallas
Written by Chris Michaels on Saturday, May 1, 2010
Wenger has begun to talk about one of this season's inevitable topics: will Gallas stay?
I would assume he won't and always have. So where do we look to find a replacement?
There was a sense at the beginning of the season, when both Gallas and Vermaelen went on a run of goalscoring and solid defending, that we'd finally cracked it. That we'd found a defensive pairing that combined quality, experience, drive and power.
It wasn't ever entirely true, because even then we were conceding stupid goals at a rate which was far beyond our closest competitors.
With Campbell likely to stay, there is a possible temptation to look at youth as an option for the future – to a player who could share first team duties with Campbell alongside Vermaelen. Djourou could be that player, but that would feel like a disappointing outcome – it's not really a solution.
The extreme option, and thereby the most unlikely, is to add rugged experience – to look at what Campbell brought to the team and go for someone big, old, strong and inspirational. I don't really have a clear idea who that player could be, but the example of Campbell, and the example of Inter in their reaching of the Champions League final on a platform of old defenders, is inspirational.
The third option is to go for known Premier League quality – and then the discussion can start again, inevitably about Brede Hangeland. The huge Norwegian has been as consistent this season as last, in what has turned out to be an astonishing year for Fulham, with their utterly joyous, but utterly unexpected reaching of the Europa League final.
The fourth option is to expect Wenger to pull another rabbit from the hat, in the self-same way he did with Vermaelen, and before him with Sagna and Touré. We should take this as the likely option, and if it brings us another player as good as Vermaelen has been, then that would be a fantastic outcome. The best of all. It certainly seems to be where Wenger is at his best in buying defenders – with the exception of Sol, all of his best defensive buys have been unknowns.
The real question behind this though is simple: are any of the options to come in better than Gallas? Not just better in certain ways, but significantly better? Vermaelen was a major leap forward on Touré – better in almost every respect, not just than the player Touré became after his bout of Malaria, but the player he was before hand.
Who out there is a major leap forward on Gallas? I can only think of big big names we won't buy with virtues beyond the Frenchman, who, turning 33 this year is exactly the experienced, seasoned pro we probably need most.
So maybe Wenger should simply be asking the question to him to stay louder and better.
Or maybe there's another rabbit waiting to come out.
Whichever, the most important decision of the summer is what happens to this position, and we really need a strong solution.
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