Ricky1985 wrote:
Clrnc wrote:
Wenger don't make any sense in his decision for a few seasons now. From persisting with Flamini, to not giving Chambers a decent chance at CB despite him always playing well in that role. It's frustrating for us that Chambers is still a newbie at CB. He should already have 2 seasons of decent experience there but he has only mostly played RB for us and looked shaky there.
He doesn't always play well there though. I like Chambers, he's got ability and is pretty gifted physically, but he's had a really rocky 18 months or so and, whilst I agree playing right back hasn't done him any favours at all, he is a walking disaster at centreback because he always had a bad lapse in concentration in him or a bad deciison under pressure. Even early on when he started quite well at centreback he was giving up one guilt edged chance a game without fail. He's so wet behind the ears that there's no way a serious club should be playing him in such a pivotal position week in, week out.
Should have sent him on loan this season back to Southampton, let him learn from Koeman and make his mistakes there.
That's the general opinion of Chambers that he is a walking liability at CB for the last 18 months. He started well for us at CB, playing very impressively although making a few mistakes here and there that went unpunished against Besiktas. He got punished by Lukaku at Everton and once Mert came back/Debuchy got injured he played mostly at RB till the horrific Swansea match. He then hardly played at all after we signed Gabriel who was impressive in his first 6 months.
This season, he started at CB against Liverpool. He had a torrid first half, but credit to him regrouped and had a flawless 2nd half that was genuinely impressive. His next CB appearance was when he came on after Gabriel got sent off at Stamford Bridge and once again was great at CB. He then had another good centreback performance at Spurs in the league cup before being partnered with Mertesacker at Hillsborough and was horrible together with the entire team. His next and last appearance at CB was when he came on at Leicester for Koscielny and once again, was very impressive at CB. His 2 other appearances for us (that wasn't RB) was the 2 promising performance at DM at home to Sunderland and Bournemouth.
Wenger shifting him around doesn't help his progression as a CB, but he was mostly very good at CB this season in particular. When the alternative was Gabriel who is more prone to making mistakes than him, you have to question the logic for favouring the Brazilian over him. Of course ideally we should have sent him out on loan, but we didn't which is why we are discussing how we should have been aiding his progression at his natural position.
