General Football : Page 23 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

General Football

Don Pacifico

Claudius Liverpool at Anfield in that awful purple kit (obviously). 😉

Clrnc

Klopp joins Red Bull as their head of football. Surprised he took a non coaching role

Don Pacifico

Clrnc wants to be involved in football but wants a break from the day-to-day intensity of being a manager. Makes sense.

goon

It’s barely involved, basically a consultancy role.

RocktheCasbah

Don Pacifico I get laughed at when I say this to opposition fans but genuinely think Diaby was one of (if not the) biggest talents ruined by injury. Guy had so much talent.

IIRC Patrick Vieira was very effusive about him when he appeared on that Man United propaganda show.

Qwiss

Diaby was one of those players who got better in people's minds the less he played. And he gave people plenty of opportunity to fantasise. I remember him having 2 good games, Liverpool and Roma. Apart from that he was generally lacking in his decision making, usually holding onto the ball too long and running into trouble.

Pepe LeFrits

Qwiss agree. He had fantastic ability but he didn't play like a CM. If he'd been small and quick he would have made a great winger but games tended to pass him by. As far as Vieira comparisons go, he looked like Paddy but played like Fabio.

daredevil

Qwiss

Diaby and Song built a strong pivot behind Cesc in 09/10, which was the basis upon which we built a title challenge. However, Barcelona came to the Emirates and the midgets ran circles around them and I don't think they quite recovered from it.

goon

Qwiss

In fairness, players who have very good technical ability and athleticism are pretty rare so it’s pretty natural to hype those sorts of talents up.

But a bit like with Eduardo, views on their potential are anchored on those peak performances (or even moments) rather bad ones.

If Theo got a potential career ending injury after that run vs Liverpool, or Guendouzi after he got called up for France, I’d wager people would have assumed their trajectory would have been a lot higher than in ended up.

Clrnc

Qwiss He was not like this before the injury even though the sample size was small.

And that said, it's not fans but many ex players/Wenger said he was unbelievable in training and was as talented as they come. Vieira himself recently was full of praise for him and said he was the closest player to him and would have been better than him had he not had that injury.

I do agree after the injury he was very inconsistent and really struggled (he mentioned in his documentary that his legs was uneven since then which made it hard for him to play without pain) but when it was at his peaks there are little players better than him

Qwiss

daredevil Denilson played that pivot as much if not more than Diaby who usually played wide or behind the striker.

RocktheCasbah

I think, and I'm speaking as someone who found Diaby to be generally infuriating, we were absolutely robbed of seeing someone reach their full potential because of the horrific injury inflicted upon him. That he ever kicked a ball again after that Sunderland game is a minor miracle.

Thinking back to that time makes me incredibly mad. How often have Premier League clubs lost players to the types of tackles inflicted on Diaby, Eduardo and Aaron Ramsey over the last 20 years? Not very often. Clubs were absolutely allowed by referees to kick the fuck out of our players. And it all started with Manchester United.

Clrnc

RocktheCasbah Ramsey was another who should have been far better (I mean he was already very good mind you). He had a high season in 13/14 but was generally hot and cold and kept getting injured since that leg break. He was not the same player after that injury.

Don't even get me started on Eduardo 🙁

daredevil

Qwiss

In other seasons he did, but not in 09/10. Diaby started over 30+ in central midfield across the PL and CL that season. Denilson started fewer games.

Qwiss

Clrnc if Ramsey had stayed fit he'd have been world class. We had enough periods of him being brilliant, enough big moments, etc to show what might have been.

Clrnc Vieira himself recently was full of praise for him and said he was the closest player to him and would have been better than him had he not had that injury.

This just isn't true no matter what Paddy says, they were completely different players. Ignoring the talent gap between them they were just not stylistically similar.

daredevil

I think the bigger regret is that we couldn't secure Yaya.

DāftYoda

daredevil we all knew that yaya’s a no go !

flobaba

Yeah there's some players that had no business putting on an Arsenal shirt. That Yaya was one of them. Smdh

Claudius

How on earth are Israel allowed to still play football games?

Burnwinter

Claudius Was thinking the same thing when I read they were competing in the Nations League. Bit ridiculous there is less noise about it than Russia is getting—implicit legitimation of the "campaign" in Gaza.

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