mdgoonah41 wrote:

hes definitely an upgrade on gibbs and is potentially a world class LB. wenger tends to do well evaluating fullbacks, for all his other flaws. debuchy is really his only big miss in recent memory. chambers is still to be determined. ric rod is like 7 years younger than monreal. he can come this summer and they can rotate next season and then ric rod can slowly become first choice

2 words, Andre Santos.

shit. you are right on that one.

Who can blame him for that one? At one point we had a thread called "Andre Santos is the best attacking fullback we've ever had".

No one pays us £7m a year Quincy, we get to be wrong.

Don't think Santos looked out of place in terms of ability when he first got going, he just did not have the right attitude.

Before his injury vs Olympiakos he wasn't a bad full back at all. Something of a mixed bag but had a lot of good games as well. The less said about his performances after his injury the better

He was always pretty shit defensively though. His timing was surprisingly good, but his way of going all or nothing for the ball with his standing tackle always got us in trouble a few times a game.
On this topic of getting it wrong at FB positions, I'd very much add Jenkinson to that list.

Jenkinson was a back up/youth player - we signed him when he was 19 and hauled him out within a few years. You can't expect every signing to do well.

As far as I'm concerned, fans need to be less focused about getting it 'right' with every signing - particularly where Wenger's concerned - and more focused on acquiring talent even if it's a risky buy.

Oh, I totally agree with that. Same problem with Jenkinson as with Sanogo, and many more, though, is that when Wenger makes his gambles on this type of player he also makes them important members of the first team squad.

we paid like £1M for jenkinson and probably recouped that and more in his loan fee and his actual games played.

Rex wrote:

He was always pretty shit defensively though. His timing was surprisingly good, but his way of going all or nothing for the ball with his standing tackle always got us in trouble a few times a game.

Yeah I do remember that. Either he'd initiate a direct counter attack or we'd be 2v3 all of a sudden.

Mirth wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, fans need to be less focused about getting it 'right' with every signing - particularly where Wenger's concerned - and more focused on acquiring talent even if it's a risky buy.

Exactly. Risks and gambles are vital parts of success. Our entire Invincibles generation were built by taking a punt on quality players who were either struggling elsewhere (Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira, Pires) or were overlooked because they weren't physically ideal for Premier League (like Ljungberg).

I think the general feeling is that we can be pretty slow to move players on when we get it wrong, though. Misfiring signings, injury-prone players and youth with limited potential tend to stay for years and clog up the squad, which limits our capacity to acquire new talents. I wish we were more ruthless in this sense. We've missed out on a lot of good deals in the last few years because we had packed the squad with players where it was obvious early on that their development was going nowhere.

Gabriel is such a player right now for me. I wish we'd just kick him out and send him looking for a new club. We gambled on him to step up last year and it failed. It's pretty irresponsible to give him another year with that in mind even if there's a small chance that he suddenly comes good. We've got ample evidence to judge him now, and the majority of his game is missing. That's worrying to me. That's the sort of player I'd get rid of and replace with someone else, even if the replacement is a work in progress too.

looking back, the chelsea game might have been the end of gabriel, no? had he kept his head against that scummy clown we might have won the game and it might have filled him with confidence moving forward. instead, it looks like it might have killed him off

Klaus wrote:

Mirth wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, fans need to be less focused about getting it 'right' with every signing - particularly where Wenger's concerned - and more focused on acquiring talent even if it's a risky buy.

Exactly. Risks and gambles are vital parts of success. Our entire Invincibles generation were built by taking a punt on quality players who were either struggling elsewhere (Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira, Pires) or were overlooked because they weren't physically ideal for Premier League (like Ljungberg).

I think the general feeling is that we can be pretty slow to move players on when we get it wrong, though. Misfiring signings, injury-prone players and youth with limited potential tend to stay for years and clog up the squad, which limits our capacity to acquire new talents. I wish we were more ruthless in this sense. We've missed out on a lot of good deals in the last few years because we had packed the squad with players where it was obvious early on that their development was going nowhere.

I'm pretty sure Wenger was a lot more ruthless in his first 10 years. He arguably signed a few players than are worse than what we've seen since but they were sold on within a season or two.

marv3llous wrote:

That's Isaac Hayden, isnt it?

Don't be silly, it's Chamberlain.