Big Willie paddy only missed around 2 months early in the season. cole a sinilar amount due to suspension. parlour and edu stepped in to provide a similar level of shielding on the occasions anyone was out. kolo was very good, but the conditions couldn't have been better for him
Bringing in Edu and Parlour to explain why circumstances were ideal for Kolo is a bit strange. You could argue Kolo, Sol and Cole made corcumstances ideal for Edu and Parlour to come in and perform at a level that kept us unbeaten.
Also Paddy missing 2 months of a 9 month season is almost a quarter of the season. Gilberto missed a similar number of games. In any case the argument that Toure (whilst starting almost every game) was one of the weaker player in the team being carried by others rather than being a key player whose involvement contributed to our season is wild to me. But each to their own I guess. I feel he more than held his own alongside the generally accepted World Class players we had that season.
Big Willie should be a "sticky this post" thread/ feature.
Big Willie its just like saying Rice, Partey and Merino and Co are shielding / surrounding Saliba and Gabriel. Of course they are. And of course they're excellent players too, aren't they? But Saliba and Gabriel are world class in their own right. I daresay outside of the insane number of corner goals, Gabriel and Toure would compare quite similarly as players. Will's point which I clearly see is that you don't play on a team like the invincibles as mere a "decent" player. All those players were some of the very best of their generation. In every single position. I find it interesting that Kolo is seemingly so underrated.
This is Kolo Touré we're discussing, who was an actual mainstay of an unbeaten Premier League defence. Think he might have been a decent player myself.
He had quite a few CL failings before that.
daredevil We had quite a few CL failings before that.
Fixed that for you.
Big Willie usimg the team's defensive decline after 2006 as proof of these faults does him a huge disservice. A similar argument could be made that Sol's flaws were exposed after he left us, if we ignored the fact he was playing for Portsmoth and their weak defence.
Don't have a particular opinion about how good Kolo was for the invincibles, but it's quite relevant that Campbell left Arsenal on the decline. Kolo Toure was 25 (?) in 2006 and should've had his best years still ahead of him. Yet, I don't think we saw any world class seasons from him after that.
Kolo was / is a fucking Arsenal legend.
Nothing more to say.
Kolo Toure reading this thread.
That would be so depressing.
Wouldn’t be the most exciting but he is talented. Another physical monster in the air
DCL? Is it 2019? I rather sign Chris Wood.
I would actually try and sign Mbeumbo from Brentford as a priority. That’s our wing sorted at least. He can be our Mane.
We need a marquee signing in attack. We’ve not had one under Arteta
We should go for Ferguson loan to buy. He's not happy at Brighton, he's still young and had heaps of potential, would be a better option than Jesus, would allow Arteta to see what he's like personality wise, would let the medical team assess him full, etc.
