Hopefully Hob Rolding bags himself a tidy loan at somewhere like Newcastle and comes back Arsenal-ready.

Great news. Think both some people were to too quick to judge based on a couple of understandable mistakes here and there (given his age and the lack of defensive leadership at the club). Both him and Holding have suffered years of mismanagement so here's hoping that can change.

On a sidepoint, think it's been a great summer for the club so far. The changes we're making on/off the pitch may not all work out but good to see how willing we are to address our weaknesses and generally try something different.

I don't see it in Chambers. Really really hope I'm wrong.

Chambers still has potential, but also he's English and the type of guy we could probably sell for what we paid or more in a year or three to another Premier League club, due to his demographics. English defenders hold their value strongly.

He lacks the aggression and physicality to be a top centre half. Being good on the ball is nice and all, but he's not good enough defensively. Think we should have sold him this summer tbh if clubs were interested.

Klaus wrote:
goon wrote:

Wonder what this means for Mustafi. We're signing Sokratis, Chambo and Holding have just signed new deals, Mavropanos is highly rated and is obviously going to be pushed by Sven. Unless we're basically giving up on Kos to make it back, that's 5 centre backs who look like they're not going anywhere.

We're in for that turkish lad too apparently. I think it spells the end for Mustafi and a loan for Holding.

Hopefully we don't see Mustafi in an Arsenal shirt again.

Sokratis, Chambers, Mavropanos, Soyuncu, Koscielny are solid options moving forward.

Irish gunner wrote:

He lacks the aggression and physicality to be a top centre half. Being good on the ball is nice and all, but he's not good enough defensively. Think we should have sold him this summer tbh if clubs were interested.

This is my take on Chambers as well. Hope he proves me wrong though.

He's not good enough yet but he does have the material. Let's see what Unai gets outta him.

Clrnc wrote:
Klaus wrote:

We're in for that turkish lad too apparently. I think it spells the end for Mustafi and a loan for Holding.

Hopefully we don't see Mustafi in an Arsenal shirt again.

Sokratis, Chambers, Mavropanos, Soyuncu, Koscielny are solid options moving forward.

I agree Mustafi should be moved on but i am not convinced any of those 5 are better right now.

I thought he had a very solid end to the season. I'm happy to keep him for now, solid squad option. Currently a level above Holding and Movrapranos.

I'm pretty sure Soyuncu is all agent talk.

It'll be interesting to see if Emery can do a better job with player development.

a month later

I didn't see this discussed elsewhere. Anyone else think it odd that Chambers was loaned out to Fulham given the mediocrity of every single one of our CBs? I'm not saying Chambers is good right now, but he might be better than Mustafi or Sokratis, and moreso Holding and Mavropanos.

It seems crazy that those are our CBs to start the season.

Wish we would jump on some CBs like Laporte, Diallo, etc who have moved recently.

It was discussed a fair bit actually. And yes it is puzzling

It would be based on the following:

  1. Has to be good and mature enough for our first team to stay, and isn't judged to be (unlike established players or experienced squaddies, even if mediocre)
  2. Has to be shifted for a maximum return if he isn't good enough (unlike younger players)
  3. Has to play regularly to find out whether he stays or goes, and that can't be guaranteed at Arsenal
  4. The overall deficit of defenders in the squad isn't judged to be dire enough to hold onto him despite 1, 2 and 3

You quite often see potentially useful squad players like Chambers go out on loan for these reasons (Wilshere is another good example).

You could argue that such a policy is unwise, but if it isn't pursued at least relatively consistently, the footballing or transfer value of a lot of these journeymen gets wasted.

At the end of a loan at Fulham we hopefully either know whether Chambers is worth the investment, or ship him off to them or another PL club for a fee. If he stays at Arsenal we probably don't find out, and the uncertainty of the last couple of years continues.

8 months later

Please for one let's not make the same mistake we've seen so many times in the last few years. Sell while there are clubs interested

With AMN, Mav, Holding, even Bielik in the picture I reckon we're probably selling him in the summer.

I'd take him over Mustafi as CBR in a back3.

unpopular opinion but i would sell mustafi, loan mavro and give chances to chambers and bielik, especially if we stick with three centerbacks. chambers was our best defender last year and had a succesfull loan, bielik has the potential to be a monster imho. would prefer this to buying some midget from la liga.