I've really liked seeing Per and Kos play together. But I still suspect we need to bring in a world class CB to partner with Kos if we want our team to be up there with best.

But who would be a world class CB that we could bring in if we were willing to pay a lot?

I guess Per+Kos with adequate cover is good enough if we at least invest in our other weak areas.

10 days later

Still a lot of rumours that we will sign him, possibly to replace Koscienly :hat:

Koscielny is going nowhere this season.

Regrading Ashley Williams i see him as an upgrade on Mertesacker. In theory he should be a good partner to Koscielny as he is more of a in-the box defender, someone sweeping behind Kos.

No one thought Song was going anywhere this time last season...

But it was widely agreed that his squad status needed downgrading.

Perhaps the same with Kos after that statement. ๐Ÿ™‚

Captain wrote:

But it was widely agreed that his squad status needed downgrading.

No it wasn't ๐Ÿ˜†

Yeah, not by me. He was one of the stars of our 11-12 season.

What was widely agreed was that we were short on creativity and shouldn't have had to rely on Song wonderballs to Van Persie for goals - that was obvious.

Granted there were quite a few on here who preferred to underrate Song's good qualities.

I don't know how much we've missed him in the end, but it would sure would've been smarter to have him than Diaby in the squad at the start of 12-13.

Songs transfer was an exception. No quotes, no real rumours, no long drawn saga about ambition etc.

One fine day BAM, he was gone with reports emerging about his misdemeanours in training.

Not really comparable to KOS.

Yes, he was forced out, and the pretext was different (agent's demands or training misdemeanours) depending on which official and/or planted leak from the club was improvising it.

I'm sure the fee had nothing to do with it.

Burnwinter wrote:

Granted there were quite a few on here who preferred to underrate Song's good qualities.

So you could say that it was widely agreed...

Yes, but to take another leaf out of the pages of history, one could also say that it was "widely agreed" that Mitt Romney should become President of the USA.

Song's status was one of the most contentious topics of discussion last summer.

Do you think we have missed him this season?

I don't. He's barely squad player level for a serious team.

Yes, we missed him. Think his absence was a key factor in our abysmal September to January.

We missed him in a sense that he was an established member of our MF and when Diaby crocked himself against Chelsea the balance was gone. Had Diaby stayed fit (lol) or had we bought a straight replacement and not relied on Coq (who turned out to be useless) we would have been fine.

Which is to say, yes, we missed him.

Guess you could say the plan was to bring ลžahin in, but we did a good job of flubbing that after giving Song his marching orders.

Even now with the emergence of Ramsey, we're still looking at and needing players who are pretty much Song's calibre and style for a complete rotation, because Diaby's still a permacrock and Coquelin's not good enough.

Guess it hinges on what you think Song's calibre is.

Really?

Have big doubts about the validity of that statement...