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Pablo Mari: Dream signing or NightMari?

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Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
Well compared to this guy, Koscielny is Baresi, Nesta and Maldini rolled into one. He frustrated at times and made some high profile errors but my word he's far better than anything we have now.
 

BigPoppaPump

Reeling from Laca & Kos nightmares
Kind of an odd player to hate. He literally threw away his Arsenal career because he wanted to get away from the **** storm.

He is the perfect example of good scouting. Plucked from no where and showed the mental focus and strength to improve where he literally was able to single handedly hold a defence together. Good in the air, on the ball, recovery pace and postionally also. A pretty complete centre back.
Koscielny was liability and was only good next to Mertesacker. Weak, rash, accident prone and mainstay in so many humiliating defeats. Almost every game he'd do something stupid it's just that he wasn't always punished for it.

Your second paragraph is almost completely false; he had awful focus, never singlehandedly held a defence together he was awful in every partnership apart from Mertesacker (who actually held our defence together) he was positionally awful always out of place and rushing into challenges leaving huge spaces. Literally all he had was pace and a decent header, he was far from a complete centre back.

If it wasn't for Arsenal he'd spend his whole career in Ligue 2/fighting relegation in Ligue 1.
 

BigPoppaPump

Reeling from Laca & Kos nightmares
He has 50 caps for France and 8 years of CL football with Arsenal being a starter... Wenger was only being able to play suicidal high line because of him, otherwise, we would probably play several years of EL instead if it wasn't for him.

There were only a few CB's at the time who could play that role as good as Koscienly. Your mind is being clouded again with some mistakes Koscienly had, but he did great in that high risk role Wenger wanted.
France couldn't win until they dropped him, remind who was it Eder bullied off the ball before scoring in the final?
 

Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
Koscielny was liability and was only good next to Mertesacker. Weak, rash, accident prone and mainstay in so many humiliating defeats. Almost every game he'd do something stupid it's just that he wasn't always punished for it.

Your second paragraph is almost completely false; he had awful focus, never singlehandedly held a defence together he was awful in every partnership apart from Mertesacker (who actually held our defence together, he was positionally awful always out of place and rushing into challenges leaving huge spaces. Literally all he had was pace and a decent header, he was far from a complete centre back.

If it wasn't for Arsenal he'd spend his whole career in Ligue 2/fighting relegation in Ligue 1.

I was always annoyed how a lot of fans, pundits and the media always acted like Koscielny was the hero and Mertesacker was a massive liability when it was the complete opposite. In fact it was very rare Mertesacker made any real high profile errors, but people used to love to say he was a weak link in our defence. One of the best signings Wenger ever made tbh. We probably don't finish top 4 in 12 or 13 without him and possibly don't win the FA Cups we did either.
 

BigPoppaPump

Reeling from Laca & Kos nightmares
I was always annoyed how a lot of fans, pundits and the media always acted like Koscielny was the hero and Mertesacker was a massive liability when it was the complete opposite. In fact it was very rare Mertesacker made any real high profile errors, but people used to love to say he was a weak link in our defence. One of the best signings Wenger ever made tbh. We probably don't finish top 4 in 12 or 13 without him and possibly don't win the FA Cups we did either.
People get easily fooled by fast all action players, they can't read between the lines. It's like thinking Fast 9 is better than Shawshank.
 

Maybe

You're wrong, no?
I was always annoyed how a lot of fans, pundits and the media always acted like Koscielny was the hero and Mertesacker was a massive liability when it was the complete opposite. In fact it was very rare Mertesacker made any real high profile errors, but people used to love to say he was a weak link in our defence. One of the best signings Wenger ever made tbh. We probably don't finish top 4 in 12 or 13 without him and possibly don't win the FA Cups we did either.
That's absolutely absurd, image Mert playing that high line without Kos (for example with Holding/Mari/Luiz)... Mert was always comfortable knowing that Kos will catch up with any runner behind him, that's why it worked for them so well.
You guys have no idea how much faith Wenger had in Kos and how well he did. There was literally nothing in front of him to protect and FB's were marching forward constantly. Mistakes were there, but his role was high risk and no CB in the world would play it any better. Wenger simply decided that he was happy with some mistakes from Kos and keep the style of football he wanted to play.

Looking at the current group, as soon as we open up a bit they are all over the place, even when you have few players babysitting them all the time.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
It's normal for football fans to put other players down when comparing them, but it's weird to me that fans do this when comparing their own players.

Seen Arsenal supporters do it when comparing the likes of Kos and Mert, Ramsey and Wilshere, etc.

If a player is a good servant, he should be remembered as such... can understand people who dislike Kos for what he did at the end when leaving, don't know what the **** he was thinking...but as a player at his peak, he was very good.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
I was always annoyed how a lot of fans, pundits and the media always acted like Koscielny was the hero and Mertesacker was a massive liability when it was the complete opposite. In fact it was very rare Mertesacker made any real high profile errors, but people used to love to say he was a weak link in our defence. One of the best signings Wenger ever made tbh. We probably don't finish top 4 in 12 or 13 without him and possibly don't win the FA Cups we did either.

Didn’t he get dropped for the title run in during 2015/16 because his head wasn’t in it though? :lol:
 

Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
Didn’t he get dropped for the title run in during 2015/16 because his head wasn’t in it though? :lol:

Really? I know he always suffered with mental health issues going back to his Bremen days as a youngster but I don't remember him being dropped that season for that reason.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
Really? I know he always suffered with mental health issues going back to his Bremen days as a youngster but I don't remember him being dropped that season for that reason.

Ah fair didn’t know about the mental health stuff but I remember him saying a few times after winning the World Cup he had motivation issues.

He definitely got dropped down the back stretch that season. Think he f*cked up bad against Chelsea at home and let them score a couple of easy goals.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
Per had a real long period of pretty poor form, after winning the World Cup.

Think with the way we played, he really needed to be mentally at it every game...which dropped for him after the World Cup win, and especially after the 2014/2015 season.

You could argue his only quality game from 2015/2016-2017/2018, was the cup final in 2017...love him, but many of Per's performances in these 3 years were Mustafi esque :lol:
 

akhil

Well-Known Member
There's a lot of revisionism going on here regarding Kos and BFG's time here. They were a very good partnership. Kos was generally good without Mertesacker too. Hell the team had a good runs with a Djourou - Kos partnership. He was one of the best CB's for 2-3 years in the league along with Alderweireld and Kompany.

Think the ugly way he left the club has a lot of residual bittereness.
 

Brett

Active Member
Koscielny was liability and was only good next to Mertesacker. Weak, rash, accident prone and mainstay in so many humiliating defeats. Almost every game he'd do something stupid it's just that he wasn't always punished for it.

Your second paragraph is almost completely false; he had awful focus, never singlehandedly held a defence together he was awful in every partnership apart from Mertesacker (who actually held our defence together) he was positionally awful always out of place and rushing into challenges leaving huge spaces. Literally all he had was pace and a decent header, he was far from a complete centre back.

If it wasn't for Arsenal he'd spend his whole career in Ligue 2/fighting relegation in Ligue 1.
Koscielny thread title was one man army(that year) here in Arsenal Mania, I hate him for the way he left the shirt stuff and all but he was world class for atleast 2 seasons. One main reason people hate him is because of that Carling cup final, but Szczesny was equally at fault for that.

Tell whatever you want about Per and his positional awareness he was slower than a bus and to partner him to get the best defense in the league in terms of number of goals conceded was no easy feet. He used to single handedly carry our defence. Lack of focus, leaving huge spaces? please he had Clichy and young bellerin to cover for I think you have gotten him confused with Mustafi.

We will have to disagree on this one @BigPoppaPump

Back to Mari I agree he is a decent left sided backup CB who if happy to play a backup role is least of our worries.
 

Brett

Active Member
There's a lot of revisionism going on here regarding Kos and BFG's time here. They were a very good partnership. Kos was generally good without Mertesacker too. Hell the team had a good runs with a Djourou - Kos partnership. He was one of the best CB's for 2-3 years in the league along with Alderweireld and Kompany.

Think the ugly way he left the club has a lot of residual bittereness.
BFG does not like certain players, and for the way Koscielny left after almost a decade I get BFG's point of you. Kos' interview about how Unai treated him through injury potentially geopardizing his health is also concerning, we as fans never know what goes on actually in the backgroud so let's leave it at that.
 
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