Calum Chambers: Here or Where?

[arsmile]

I said in the match thread-

he seems like the kind of guy who can't recover in bad games

if he makes a small mistake he spends the rest of the game spiralling out of control with full-on sabotage nonsense...a bit like senderos....

his main issue is the batshit stupid stuff he does in possession- I don't care how good or bad you are as a CB or a footballer...don't decide to try and meg the opposition on the halfway line.

he might be a better technical/physical defender than holding- but i'd take holding 10/10 times just because his mentality seems better- more confident, more composed, makes fewer stupid decisions. He makes mistakes- but he rarely has games which are spiralling disasters like chambers does.....

 

[Lookin' for a new Baby]

I said in the match thread-

he seems like the kind of guy who can't recover in bad games

if he makes a small mistake he spends the rest of the game spiralling out of control with full-on sabotage nonsense...a bit like senderos....

his main issue is the batshit stupid stuff he does in possession- I don't care how good or bad you are as a CB or a footballer...don't decide to try and meg the opposition on the halfway line.

he might be a better technical/physical defender than holding- but i'd take holding 10/10 times just because his mentality seems better- more confident, more composed, makes fewer stupid decisions. He makes mistakes- but he rarely has games which are spiralling disasters like chambers does.....

Right at the beginning he had a bad run of games and totally lost confidence. He was played out of position I think and didn't he score a lot of OGs?

 

[Hunta]

If you want proof maybe judge him on his Middlesborough performances which were pretty good rather than on a couple of appearances this season off the back of an injury.

Chambers and Holding for that matter are reserve players and have easily shown enough ability to develop into very good defenders. It's hardly like we're relying on them to play 30 league games each.

You mean the Boro team who were the most defensive team in recent memory? Karanka played for draws every game. He had 4 midfielders sat in front of him all season and they still went down.

Look at Michael Keane at Burnley compared to him at Everton. These basic defenders are ok when you surround them and play not to lose.

 

[TromsoGooner]

I said in the match thread-

he seems like the kind of guy who can't recover in bad games

if he makes a small mistake he spends the rest of the game spiralling out of control with full-on sabotage nonsense...a bit like senderos....

his main issue is the batshit stupid stuff he does in possession- I don't care how good or bad you are as a CB or a footballer...don't decide to try and meg the opposition on the halfway line.

he might be a better technical/physical defender than holding- but i'd take holding 10/10 times just because his mentality seems better- more confident, more composed, makes fewer stupid decisions. He makes mistakes- but he rarely has games which are spiralling disasters like chambers does.....

Holding had a few performances very similar, possibly worse, to Chambers` yesterday. early in the season. Few early mistakes that seemed to destroy his confidence completely.

 

[GunnerBP]

With both Holding and Chambers I think the biggest issue is mental.

Chambers is better technically than Holding, so he often tries to do too much and that allows mistakes to creep in. Once that happens his confidence dips.

Holding tries to keep it simple, so few mistakes show up, but both of them have had nightmare matches for us.

Frankly, both of them need to get it sorted out pretty quickly. Merts is retiring after this season, and Kos and Monreal are both over 30. Kos' achilles means he can't play twice a week either.

I think we'll see more of the Chambers-Mustafi-Holding back three, and I wouldn't be surprised if that back three gets better as the season progresses.

 

[IslingtonBornandbred]

Chambers will be a good to very good central defender when he's 25/26+ imo....what we do with him until then? That's the problem, because he's essentially learning on the job from defenders and in a defensive and team set-up that isn't a very good teacher.

 

[Zaza]

Starting to lose hope in him. Think it's best we cut our losses with him. His ball playing skills is top notch no question, but he clearly lacks the mentality to be a top cb with us. Again - I wonder what Steve Bould is paid to do. Either Wenger lets this guy coach the defence or he leaves. He needs private sessions with Bould and Keown.

 

[IslingtonBornandbred]

Starting to lose hope in him. Think it's best we cut our losses with him. His ball playing skills is top notch no question, but he clearly lacks the mentality to be a top cb with us. Again - I wonder what Steve Bould is paid to do. Either Wenger lets this guy coach the defence or he leaves. He needs private sessions with Bould and Keown.

Think the problems start further forward though. I know there were a couple of balls over the top where Chambers got caught, but if you look at our set-up at the moment the midfield central two can get over-run and ran through and that's if they are in position.

I'd be hard pressed to really judge any defender in our team because the balance is well off imo.

 

[nick gould]

I thought Mustafi was worse than him. I only saw two crazy mistakes from chambers where he just allowed morata in. Fortunately he was not punished for that. I kind of think he is mentally stronger than holding. Holding ‘s Facebook fills opposition strikers with confidence. He looks scared.

 

[CurryFlavoured]

The defence is ****ed, this isn't an environment for any young player to develop. The way we play out from the back means that our defenders need to be technically really solid, way too much so. Mustafi almost plays like a midfielder at times. That meant that Chambers was a bit all over the place and generally poor. I don't think that he's a poor player (not sure if he's good enough either), but he (and Holding) haven't a hope in hell of fulfilling their potential in this system.

 

[Cudareli]

For those questioning his mentality, that is blatantly wrong. He played in the Premier League when he was still a teenager, then went to a relegation threatened side at 21 years old and played consistently in the heart of their defence at an astounding level. He literally was their best defender by a country mile after his first 5 games for the club and deserved every bit of praise he got.

It's so easy to sit on a forum and hammer a players 'mental strength' because it can't really be proven one way of the other. But I struggle to buy into that when a player has played at the level Chambers has at his age and still, even after that mistake last night early against Chelsea, look relatively unphased by it all and still opened himself up to receive the ball and play out from the back.

The one glaring issue that he has is speed, and like I and others have said above, in the suicidal Arsenal defence that is something that is difficult to overcome. Literally almost all of the defenders that carve out a career here at the club are lightening quick because more often than not they are needing to rely on their recovery pace to bail them out.

If Chambers had moved to Leicster in the summer and played alongside Harry Maguire, right now we'd be cursing the fact that we'd sold him.

 

[Keplaz]

Chambers will be solid. He just needs time and games. Football is also about partnerships and chemistry. How many times has he played in a back three with those two? Playing together in training isn't the same as a big game environment with Eden Hazard running at you.
He is still really young for a defender and I think he did Ok yesterday. Chambers will come good.

 

[infinium]

You can't blame Chambers for failing to develop within Wenger's kamikaze defence framework. Wenger has always built his team from the front backwards. That's fine if your defenders are Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure with Gilberto in front of them but if you have kids like Chambers - they need a better plan!

 

[GunnerBP]

For those questioning his mentality, that is blatantly wrong. He played in the Premier League when he was still a teenager, then went to a relegation threatened side at 21 years old and played consistently in the heart of their defence at an astounding level. He literally was their best defender by a country mile after his first 5 games for the club and deserved every bit of praise he got.

It's so easy to sit on a forum and hammer a players 'mental strength' because it can't really be proven one way of the other. But I struggle to buy into that when a player has played at the level Chambers has at his age and still, even after that mistake last night early against Chelsea, look relatively unphased by it all and still opened himself up to receive the ball and play out from the back.

The one glaring issue that he has is speed, and like I and others have said above, in the suicidal Arsenal defence that is something that is difficult to overcome. Literally almost all of the defenders that carve out a career here at the club are lightening quick because more often than not they are needing to rely on their recovery pace to bail them out.

If Chambers had moved to Leicster in the summer and played alongside Harry Maguire, right now we'd be cursing the fact that we'd sold him.

When I talk about Chambers' and Holding's mentality, I'm not saying that they don't have the mentality to play in the Premier League. But there is a difference between the focus and concentration you need to thrive at a mid-table club that plays once a week, and a club like ours that pushes for the top four and is always in Europe.

Chambers and Holding are developing this kind of mentality, and this takes time and proper coaching for young defenders.

I think both of them are developing well, but they both still need to make that next step if we are to rely on them to fill the void that will inevitably come with Merts, Kos, and Monreal.

 

[Garrincha]

His arms have a mind of their own. Who the **** runs like that?... Especially round the box.

 

[kraphtous]

Can’t wait to see him play for Derby County in 2-3 years!

 

[YeahBee]

Starting to lose hope in him. Think it's best we cut our losses with him. His ball playing skills is top notch no question, but he clearly lacks the mentality to be a top cb with us. Again - I wonder what Steve Bould is paid to do. Either Wenger lets this guy coach the defence or he leaves. He needs private sessions with Bould and Keown.

I will not judge a single player brought up during the Wenger days or under 22-23 year of age

we simply don't know their real ability or potential

Imagine if these guys were brought up under a more tactically sound manager/team

people often say learn from your mistakes, but that is BS
you don't learn from mistakes, you learn from success
or rather you learn from corrections into succesfull actions, we have no success and no corrections

 

[Mitch]

Good peformance tonight, looked much more composed.

 

[Tosker]

MOTM according to Phil McNulty on BBC Sport site

 

[GDeep™]

Player plays better when given more than one game after 18 months out.

Shocker, who would’ve thought it?