goon at the same time, do you want him going into games worried about overextending himself and playing with fear? That doesn't even take into account the fact we might be risking making the situation worse for a player right at the start of his career.
Injury Thread...It's Never Ending
This is going to be a tricky one to deal with... Back injuries are really hard to manage.
Need to find a solution if he is out for the season.. Wondering if Zinchenko can play right and Ben move to the middle, with KT at LB.
I think I'd rather play Tierney at CB if it comes to that (we all know it'll be Holding in). We basically play 3 at the back in possession so that'd be Tierney-Gabriel-White with the usual Zinchenko/Partey pairing ahead of them.
Tierney isn’t great progressing the ball though, probably the worst out of him, Holding and Kiwior.
Keep it simple imo, trust who you have with minimal disruption to the rest of the team.
I'd back Holding for about 5 of the 10 games.
The rest I'd be worried about him costing us.
But not much we can do, Arteta will stick with him so just have to hope he plays himself into good form and doesn't cost us like last season.
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I back Holding. Seems a well respected leader in the group, and also not to forget he's been at CB for 2 FA Cup final wins too. Proper defender who is generally dependable and I feel has been a bit underrated for the most part. He's not as good as the starting pair but that's why he's the backup. The Spurs game last season was obviously a disaster which has clouded opinions of him a bit. It was probably mitigated a bit by having Cedric on his right so he felt he had no choice but to go up against Son. He had a great game against Palace and I'd have no concerns with him for the next game. His pace against Salah or Haaland would be a concern but one game at a time. Him slotting into his natural position also causes the least disruption to the team compared to some of the other suggestions which involve shifting multiple players out of their usual positions.
If Holding's performance against Palace is any guide, we can trust him to move the ball around securely and with confidence, go hard with good technique in his duels, play with an understanding alongside Gabriel and White, and read what's occurring in a match.
Holding's one outstanding weakness (and it's big) is his foot speed. He is going to be far slower on recovery than most forwards. He's going to be dropped over five yards around the area sometimes. But he can't do anything about it and can't be blamed for it.
One thing that's reassuring: you know Arteta will make appropriate tactical adjustments—for example to Zinchenko, or White's roles—to compensate for Holding's slowness.
As for Saliba's injury, I had a hunch it'd be a bit of a problem as soon as his back was mentioned. If you've got an inflamed or bulging disc, and you've got a protective muscle spasm happening, there's not many treatments beyond rest, and stretching and lengthening the affected muscle groups. It all takes time. Saliba might be able to play with analgesia and muscle relaxants, but if he experiences a real spasm, he'll be incapacitated. And if it's anything worse than that …
You'd expect Saliba to be a bit of a roll of the dice for the remainder of the season. He's a big, strong lad who's been getting stronger year by year. I assume they'll have him absolutely thrashing his core in the summer, which you can hope will help stop recurrences.
Holding definitely isn't completely incapable and his ability on the ball is underrated because of his ungainly technique I think. None of this detracts from the fact Saliba is a big loss but it's not like we're airlifting Gavin Hoyte into defence.
In my mind, it does however make us more reliant on Partey as Holding + Jorginho feels a little immobile. So there are broader concerns in terms of our squad depth here.
Seen lots of suggestions on Twitter that we should move Partey to RB and White central. Sounds very OTT to me just because Partey played a few minutes there to rest White.
If AMN was here, would we play him or Holding?
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Arteta doesn't tend to make changes like that without provocation. He seems to understand that unless your decision has an obvious basis in form, you might as well just shout "You're shit" at Rob Holding in training. Especially if you're going to do something desperate and disruptive like drag Partey out of his specialist position.
And Holding performed above expectations against Palace, so it'd be extra vexatious.
goon Problem is I think Saliba is the type who needs to be playing every week. We saw after the world cup it took him a few games to find his rhythm again.
By the time the Liverpool games he would have been out for 3.5 weeks, hopefully will be in a better state to play but the current reports are concerning. Just our luck Tomi is out for the season as well or we could have put White as our CB or used Tomi as our CB.
JazzG Problem is I think Saliba is the type who needs to be playing every week. We saw after the world cup it took him a few games to find his rhythm again.
True, but the alternative is Holding...
I wonder if Kiwior is an option with Gabriel somehow. I know he wasn't particularly good on his debut but he's at least got a bit of pace.
Would've been ace if we managed to land Fresneda.. But Tomi and Saliba going down in the same match wasn't exactly expected.
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Tomiyasu being injured for half the season was highly predictable, bless him.
I'm not sure a perceived defensive frailty will only work against us. We've been such a well-organised team that without some sense of weakness, many opposition sides haven't ventured out or stretched themselves against us.
goon I wonder if Kiwior is an option with Gabriel somehow.
Having seen the way Arteta usually manages the XI, I don't think this will happen unless Holding is blatantly exposed or punished in a match.
We should be fine with Holding at CB for most of the games.
City, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Chelsea are the ones where we will absolutely need Saliba. So if we can manage him and get him to play some of the games, it would be ideal.
Burnwinter was Tomi injured for half the season though? Seems like he was mostly fit this season, only injury was right before WC and then that unfortunate slip.
He did miss a chunk last year but he has been in the squad for 23 out of 28 matches we've played this season.
Play Xhaka at cb.
Kel Varnsen One of the best things Artetas done is move Xhaka further forward to mitigate his brain farts. He's also no where close to the defender Holding is.
The solution is there and its obvious. Play Holding.
