Riccardo Calafiori: Page 9 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Riccardo Calafiori

Qwiss

JazzG having a beautiful head of hair like that and then doing this doesn't bode well for his decision making.

JazzG

Qwiss He’s 22 so still young and inexperienced, he’s joining the manager with the best hair in the business, he’ll hopefully guide him and make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Mirth

I wonder if we’re going to see us play 3 at the back more this season. We’re stacked in defence but relatively lightweight in midfield

Qwiss

Mirth how would that even look? We don't really have the rest of the team to make it work.

Clrnc

Qwiss even if we start with a back 4 when we attack it will easily be a back 3 with Calafiori in the back line. Will be something like this one one of the fullback inverting.

Saliba Gabriel Cala
White/ Timber Rice
Saka Ode Havertz Martinelli
Jesus

We could probably play a outright 343 too if we need it

Saliba Gabriel Cala
Timber Rice Odegaard Trossard
Saka Havertz Martinelli

CPM

Yeah, I think we'll see a lot of de facto 3 at the back this season like we saw with in-form Zinchenko in 22-23. All of Timber, Calafiori, and White can step into midfield from LB or RB, so you can get a 3-2-5 (or 3-box-3) similar to what we had two seasons ago. This lets us push the front five up really high and keep our wingers wide, great both for pressing and attacking.

One possible setup (the spaces aren't perfect but you get the idea):

Claudius

CPM like this.
I’m so excited about this signing. I think we will end up with a right pod of Tomi, White and Saliba. And then a left pod of Cala, Timber and Gabriel and likely Zinchenko as well. The beauty being all of those players are flexible and can cover multiple roles in defense.
Cala was clearly one of the best players on the Italian team last month, great on the ball, progressive. It’s a great addition. We need one more midfielder / AM of this quality now.

Burnwinter

Claudius I'm quite certain he'll be a left back or LCB for us. Where he's going to improve us straight up is his reading of the play and his execution of intercepts and tackles. Remains to be seen what it means to lose Zinchenko's "backup general" style when going forward, or how Calafiori may link with Rice, Gabriel, Martinelli or Havertz.

Clrnc

Confirmed.

Burnwinter

Clrnc Oh dear 😆 The boy's chosen his Arsenal dream over his girl.

JazzG

Clrnc Naughty boy, once Arteta catches wind he'll make sure he's married within the year. Need his full focus on the Arsenal not chasing after birds.

flobaba

Clrnc London birds better make him feel welcome...

lorddulaarsenal

He’s proper Arsenal

Claudius

Burnwinter we may loss progressive passing when Zinchenko is on the bench, but this guy will allow us to mix it up with his carrying. We don’t have enough players who have the power and skill to run 20 yards with the ball and disorganise the opponent. With this guy and timber, we suddenly have that running.

Don Pacifico

Bernard Woolley I feel like that has been the sentiment for 60-70% of our signings and things worked out alright.

Meatwad

she has crazy eyes. look at this psycho marking her territory during an interview. guaranteed she doesn't behave this way if the interviewer was a man.

regardless of what she says in that tweet, she's following him to london even if he doesn't know.

Big Willie

That's a fake tiktok apparently. Haven't checked but this is what they saying

mdgoonah41

this transfer is only like an 6.4/10 on the weirdness scale, still plenty of time for things to ramp up

Burnwinter

Claudius We'll see what happens, but I like Calafiori a lot on paper. This looks like a significant upgrade.

There seem to be some concerns about Calafiori's durability and athleticism, but those are also Zinchenko's weakest suits. Kiwior is an elite physical specimen and an asset to the squad, but he's no "pictures" player. Come on in, Riccardo.

Clrnc

Don't think we lost anything at all without Zinchenko playing last season. If any, it was net gain and improved team performance

Claudius

Clrnc he wasn't a gamechanger in the way that Rice, Saka, etc are, but was still a value-adding member of the squad. It's easy to understand why Arteta has been committed to him given the options we've had. I think Cala is the piece that makes Zinchenko less necessary.

« Previous Page Next Page »