Toni Kroos

[hydrofluoric acid]

He's not suited to a 2 man midfield. He's a shadow of the player he was at Bayern when deployed in one.

He wasn't even that good and Bayern. A lot of hype. He never had any stand out abilities.

 

[Aevi]

As someone pointed out, how can you reject him when you look at our midfield options?

He has his flaws, sure, but he's still pretty ****ing good, and I really feel Coquelin would work well with him as a partner.

 

[BBF]

I have watched games, but you have me all wrong. I don't want him to be a defensive midfielder like Casemiro is, I want to sign him to have a prime passing midfielder, comfortable on the ball, which covers all the bases one of our other midfielders can't, in this case Coquelin.

Kroos-Coq has a very good balance of midfield qualities. It's more physical (and defensively capable as I argued) than one with Cazorla, it is better at passing and dictating than with Ramsey, it is more experienced and rugged than with Elneny, and Kroos isn't a player particularly susceptible to injury.

He can control the tempo of a game, no doubt. But I've seen him get dominated without the ball in a two man midfield so many times. He looks like a lost puppy out there.

 

[Mitch]

Citys core - Yaya - Fernadihno - Milner -Silva + Fernandinho > whatever arsenal have fielded , the guys you mentioned featured but werent the core, hell Nasri contributed to that side aswell. Oh and Kun helps too.

Uniteds core was older but they had match winners back to front - the RVP addition basically put them over - Oh and Fergie helps too.

First off, Fernandinho and Milner aren't better than Cazolra and Coquelin.Demichelis still made 27 appearances in their league title winning side, Navas 18 starts and Garcica 14 starts with coming on 15 as sub. Also the United players I mentioned also heavily featured in their title winning teams despite not being as good as Cazorla or Coquelin. Another example is the A.Madrid title winning cm pairing of Gabi and Tiago.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

I think there's some argument about Fernandinho vs Coquelin, though slightly different players, City play Fernando alongside Fernandinho now because Fernandinho loves going forward a lot. Though that guy was right Yaya, Fernandinho, Milner and Silva all in full flow was a pretty decent and well-balanced midfield while Navas was a decent player for some games. I mean those midfielders had strength, athleticism, Fernandinho and Milner both incredibly hard-working with the genuine quality of Yaya and Silva. Actually when you compare ours, especially our current state, you feel it really lacks something in comparison.

I really liked that City 13/14 team could so easily switch between 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and 4-2-2-2 at various times, but always utterly dominated every game they played and used width of Kolarov and Zabaleta extremely well. It was a true commanding title winning side all over the pitch. Weird how they've went away from the way they played and how far they've fallen also.

 

[MutableEarth]

Kroos is a bit passive defensively - can work in a co-ordinated team but that team would have to make concessions for him defensively. He's adequate without being especially good defensively to play in deeper midfield. Your midfield partners will have to be the ball-winner. It would mostly have to be a 3 man midfield aswell (which I think we should switch to at some point anyway).

Coquelin/Kroos as a duo would function pretty much exactly the same as Coquelin/Cazorla, which might sound good but IMO we need to do better if we want to be an elite team. We might aswell just keep doing Coq/Caz as a duo, if that's the dynamic everyone wants.

We need someone who is capable of doing both of what Coq and Caz can do in deeper midfield if we must persist with a 2 man midfield. Kroos on paper is ahead of who we have in terms of his overall quality but stylistically he's probably not the guy. The guy we need must be more defensively secure while still able to distribute from deeper areas. We can say that those players are "impossible" or only at big teams, but the reality is that Arsenal as a club have aspirations of being an elite team. And an elite team needs to at least have players capable of reaching an elite level, and excelling in more than one area.

 

[krackpot]

I'd take him in a heartbeat, World Class or not.

 

[Rimaal]

He's class.

 

[Ceballinhos]

Xhaka + Kroos behind Özil would be mouthwatering.
For some games we could play Coquelin + Xhaka to defend better.

 

[Godwin1]

Özil was played out on the left for Germany in the WC so Kroos could dictate play from the middle. Quite the endorsement.

 

[4R5Emaniac]

Kroos is a bit passive defensively - can work in a co-ordinated team but that team would have to make concessions for him defensively. He's adequate without being especially good defensively to play in deeper midfield. Your midfield partners will have to be the ball-winner. It would mostly have to be a 3 man midfield aswell (which I think we should switch to at some point anyway).

Coquelin/Kroos as a duo would function pretty much exactly the same as Coquelin/Cazorla, which might sound good but IMO we need to do better if we want to be an elite team. We might aswell just keep doing Coq/Caz as a duo, if that's the dynamic everyone wants.

We need someone who is capable of doing both of what Coq and Caz can do in deeper midfield if we must persist with a 2 man midfield. Kroos on paper is ahead of who we have in terms of his overall quality but stylistically he's probably not the guy. The guy we need must be more defensively secure while still able to distribute from deeper areas. We can say that those players are "impossible" or only at big teams, but the reality is that Arsenal as a club have aspirations of being an elite team. And an elite team needs to at least have players capable of reaching an elite level, and excelling in more than one area.

Maybe, a shift to 4-4-2 diamond would do the trick with box to box midfielders either side of Kroos. Or we could pull a cheap deal and sign Gary Medel with Kroos and Nenny/Ramsey either side of him. If we were to go mental in the summer which I would LOVE to happen, I'd break the bank for Zlatan/Cavani/Benzema, Krychowiak,Kroos,a top CB and Naingolan/Allan. Sell Ramsey, Ox and Theo.

There is reserve kid who can benefit from Kroos as well. Dan Crowley.

 

[say yes]

I think he'd be brilliant for us.

 

[say yes]

 

[Rex Stone]

Özil was played out on the left for Germany in the WC so Kroos could dictate play from the middle. Quite the endorsement.

I think that's the way we'd have to go if we bought him though. I think we should discard the no. 10 position. It's antiquated in modern football already like 4-4-2 was about 5/6 years ago.

We'd need to play a midfield 3 but then I don't think that meshes with our players unless we get a mobile striker in the mould of Benzema or Suarez who can move out of the box and help create.

Alexis and Özil wouldn't give us width so we'd be dreadful with a pure box striker like Giroud.

 

[emilursin]

would be a good signing, but I still think El'Nenny was our plan for the summer, I think we will se the addition of either a striker or a winger, im hoping for a wc midfield signing but im not holding my breath.

 

[Stoneh]

Never been impressed with him, a little bit Denilson in him.

But these are the type of players Wenger will go after in the summer.

I second to that mate, Ngolo Kante is the ideal player we need imho. But Wenger wont buy, as no one is out there that can improve his squad.

 

[Nyctophobia]

The AS rumour I read stated that if Kante goes to Real, Kroos might join us.

 

[ferrarif50hunt]

Forget the stats here, watch any game of Real Madrid's and you'll see it gets overrun when he plays deepest. If we're looking at stats, then fine. I'll use them to prove my point.

Compare him to Casemiro, another midfielder in the same team. One's played 25 times, the other 16.

Interceptions
Kroos: 35
Casemiro: 26

Tackles won
Kroos: 41
Casemiro: 34

Aerial duels
Kroos: 45%
Casemiro: 64%

Tackles lost
Kroos: 70
Casemiro: 40

Blocks
Kroos: 1
Casemiro: 7

All against a squad player who's fairly average... That's pretty inept, even if you believe stats. Watch any game of his and you'll see what I'm on about.

Kroos isn't a ball winner though, and that isn't the role he'd play here. Coquelin would be the one making the majority of the tackles.

Kroos would add balance to the midfield. It's going to be very difficult to find someone who can act as both ball winner AND dlp, unfortunately there aren't many Sergio Busquets' knocking about.

Kroos isn't bad defensively, but he's being asked to play as the only deep lying midfielder at Madrid, often partnered in a 3 man midfield with Modric and Isco/James etc, understandably he struggles with that. Here he'd be partnered with a more defensively minded midfielder in Coquelin, which would eliminate all of the defensive issues he's had at Madrid.

He is perfect for us.

 

[ferrarif50hunt]

Don't understand why people are saying players like Kante would be a better fit for us, you can't play 2 ball winning midfielders in a 2 man midfield like ours. Where does the build up come from? Where's the controller?

Coquelin - Kante would be a rubbish midfield pairing, no balance.

 

[James Bond]

Özil was played out on the left for Germany in the WC so Kroos could dictate play from the middle. Quite the endorsement.

How much was that down to Reus getting injured in the last warm up game before the WC though?