Jan Vertonghen: Page 6 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Jan Vertonghen

Captain

If we get back Bartley and Wenger fancies him, I can see that happening. Otherwise we'll probably keep hold of Djourou for his home grown status if nothing else. Personally, I'm not horrified at the thought of Djourou playing like you guys though.

lorddulaarsenal

y va marquer wrote:
General Mirth wrote:
Petit came in as a defender, didn't he? Gilberto was a CB until the season before WC '02.

I doubt managers look at favoured positions at all when scouting a player, rather focus on their skills and whether they can be translated across.

Although I'll take Rex's word on his lack of ability in midfield, and I can't see Wenger ever signing a midfielder who isn't good at passing the ball around.

Do people believe this is the plan for Vertonghen because they feel we don't need another decent defender and this idea of playing him in a DM role explains why we may be interested?

Or have people actually watched him play and thought he's wasted in defence, he's got what it takes to play in MF?

Personally I don't have any issue at all with him being signed primarily to play in our back four.

If we're going for a midfielder I'd prefer one of the physically commanding attacks with vision variety.

Nothing wrong with adaptable players. The lad looks quality. I recon he'd see more game time in midfield here tho

Coombs

Having Song, who can do a job at CB, and Vert, who can do a job at DM...sounds like a quality depth signing, and also sounds like competition. I'm not sure Frimpong, for instance, is up to the task of providing real consistent quality in depth or competition to Song, and Coquelin is still young himself and should have more than 1 player above him in the pecking order. We'd have a really, really solid foundation for our squad just bringing this guy in. Captain is right in that DJ is really not that bad for 5th choice...and Bartley doesn't seem to be any closer to an Arsenal XI than Frimpong to me.

Klaus

I wonder if we're going to experiment with the defence next season. I could see the sense in having Vertonghen and Mertesacker as backups if we played with a tree-man backline like Conte does at Juventus. Sagna could be the third defender.

For £7 million this guy would be a steal anyhow.

Rex

John Carter wrote:
not seen him play then rex?

Have too! Wouldn´t be a starter here either at CB or at CM. 🙂

Good player, good to provide depth in our squad, but with our limited budget he should be some way down on our list of priorities.

Timbob

We shouldn't even factor in Frimmers or Bartley for next season. If they can do anything (assuming Bartley doesn't get sold) then it's a bonus.

kamikaze

Klaus wrote:
I wonder if we're going to experiment with the defence next season. I could see the sense in having Vertonghen and Mertesacker as backups if we played with a tree-man backline like Conte does at Juventus.

i mentioned that in passing before, but do you actually think it's a possibility?

Ricky1985

No. It's not going to happen.

Klaus

Probably not, but you never know. The difference wouldn't be too big compared to how we play at the moment, it's emerging among other attacking sides (Guardiola among others has experienced with it a lot) and the extra attacking position could benefit someone like Chamberlain. Above all though it's the only reason this signing would make sense to me. Even if we sell Djourou, why would Vertonghen come to Arsenal to be fourth choice and have to fight with Mertesacker to even be included in the match-day squad? He's good enough to play regularly for a number of Champions League sides.

kamikaze

yea it makes no sense. i figure it's just his agent trying to engineer a move to a top club. not sure if the rumoured interest in m'vila is real for the same reason - we are already loaded with CM's.

Klaus

That's my thinking too. We are a class midfielder short at the moment to be fair, but that player is probably Jack Wilshere and not Yann M'Vila. I think we're more likely to sign a goalkeeper and a centreforward to go with Podolski. Wouldn't surprise me if there was something to those rumours about Giroud that popped up in January.

DKGooner

I can't see us going for Vertonghen unless we sell Djourou. I would like to think we would give Bartley a chance, but rather doubt we will. Vertonghen is more a CB than a DM from what I have seen so far. If we sell Djourou, I could see Vertonghen come in to challenge Mertesacker at CB. The big German has looked OK in his début season before injury, but he may not reach the level we want next season. Wouldn't be a bad thing to sign him, but would seriously worry about his available opportunities if he came in initially as 4th choice CB. True we do get prolonged injuries, but we can't tell where and when they will occur, so can't really adopt a proper plan to break him into the team and he may struggle to gain form without sufficient game time to prepare him for emergencies.

Rex

With the emergence of the 25 man squad rule no team can realistically have more than 4 CBs over 21. Also, which are these clubs that have a better 4th choice CB than Djourou? I think we are already quite strong at CB myself.

Mirth

And Djourou also qualifies as a home grown player, we won't get rid of him that easily.

Clrnc

Bartley and Miquel can qualify for homegrown too.

Djourou is useless for me

Mirth

Djourou's achieved a hell of a lot more than Bartley or Miquel have thus far. It's not even up for debate, getting rid of him right now for those two.

Also, Bartley and Miquel don't need to be registered yet, waste of a spot.

Tam

Bartley isn't going to make it here, and next season I think he'd struggle to do any better than Djourou could if given the chance.

kamikaze

not impressed by what you've seen of him, tam?

a lot of us are guilty of forgetting how good djourou was just a year or so ago. i'm absolutely content with our 4 CBs.

asajoseph

Djourou was excellent last year, and pretty much held our defence together on his own when Vermaelen was out, for the first 2/3 of the season. Has been pretty terrible since, and hard to imagine that we don't have a youngster with the potential to deliver better than what we've seen from Djourou for most of this year. Question with Djourou is where his real level is - is he a good player in poor form, or a poor player who had a good streak a year ago (or somewhere in between)?

I like Miquel, myself - I don't know how ready Arsene might be to give him games on a semi-regular basis, but if he chose to push him up a notch next season it wouldn't shock me any more than seeing him loaned out for the year.

lorddulaarsenal

Are we going to adopt his silly song?

« Previous Page Next Page »