And yet that was the pairing that beat City last season and Neville said Arsenal turned a corner after that game he needs to make his mind up.

Gary Neville is just anti-Arsenal, pure and simple

Wilshere can't be relied on. He seems to be as bad as Diaby was with injuries. until he can prove he can stay fit for a long period we shouldn't be planning our future around him

Coq is ridiculously good, and his weaknesses from the start of the year (passing, positioning) are getting better by the week.

He has been saying for ages Coq and Santi partnership will fail eventually. So when Santi played how he did today he was always going to pipe up.

He's on that nonsense again. Can't believe people thinj that idiot is a decent pundit. Always spouting cliches when we drop points that brain dead sshole.

The hype has gone to his head he does talk more nonsense than he used to

Moany arsenal fans cant take a bit of criticism, all of a sudden he's an awful pundit. Game of opinions, get over it.

Thing is half the Arsenal board agreed with him when he shat the same nonsense after the Liverpool game.

Benny
He's an opinion for you. You should have been aborted or dropped from the fourth floor. Now feck off

Coq's looked quite good when I've seen him. Problem is you have a history of bestowing world class status on any player who has a decent run of form so it will take the rest of us a while to actually beleive it should they actually be top class.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Definitely looks one of arsenals better players this season, along with bellerin and ozil

comment by Wumpatrol (U5046)
posted 8 minutes ago
Benny
He's an opinion for you. You should have been aborted or dropped from the fourth floor. Now feck off
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He's playing up to the stereotype that Arsenal always need a powerful DM. Don't think they'll be silenced until we buy a 6'4. If coq was 4 inches taller he wouldn't be saying this.

But he is as someone said, half right. There are some games where we could do with another more powerful player to sit along side coq, and soemeone who can also play back up to coq.

But coq certainly is a top DM at the moment. There wouldn't be any better DM around that we could realistically buy. And coq and cazorla will be good enough for a lot of the games we'll play

Coquelin Is an absolute beast for you guys,

It's fantastic when a player you don't think will make it comes in and makes a position his own so fair play to the lad.

Still think if you guys signed a schniderlin type to go along with him then you'd be set.

We would have a bland midfield then. Coq and Carzola is fine and has been great all season. One game when the latter is ill doesn't change anything.

Coq and Monreal were our best so no idea why he's digging at Coq for. It's obvious we need someone energetic next to Coq like Ramsey or Wilshere. But Cazorla so far has been doing a good job.

Neville was a good pundit but nowadays he's gone downhill.

To be fair if you read the article there's nothing in it.

It has hit quote from August about the pair and then his in-game commentary saying that we are playing as a 6 and 4, which was very true.

Unfortunately (I don't him as pundit) but Gary Neville has a point.

When he talks about a classic holding player, he is referring to the position of the player in front of center backs and behind the midfield two. At the moment, Coq is playing alongside Santi and not behind him. Coq has two weaknesses. He doesn't have the height of Gilbert Silva and neither does he have the vision of Gilberto/Petit to initiate attacks under pressure. That is the reason why Santi is playing deeper and not say Ramsey when he was fit. Wenger admitted as much after the West Ham game. Of course the problem with playing Santi in the middle is that he is too small to player there. This is why Ramsey playing wide helped Santi so much in covering, providing his legs when he was under pressure. And now that Ramsey is out we are suffering slightly in the middle. Though today was all about compressing space and depriving our midfield from getting on the ball because we have no threat behind the opposition anymore.

This is an issue and why we needed someone like Kondogbia last summer.

comment by Wumpatrol (U5046)
posted 3 minutes ago
We would have a bland midfield then. Coq and Carzola is fine and has been great all season. One game when the latter is ill doesn't change anything.
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Wouldn't be bland but effective.

Carzola cannot play CM against any teams that press him or you.

A more mobile player like schniderlin could easily deal with that.

Maybe Jack is your answer but he can't be relied on.

Any back to the actual article I think Coquelin has been great for you

No Chris
During the Liverpool game he clearly said Arsene "is too arrogant to see he needs to buy tough players to cover for our attackers" key word being buy not positioning or tactics. He was also ripping into Coq during that game saying he isn't good enough

Teams have pressed us all season and apart from today when he was ill he has wriggled his way through brilliantly and set up attacks from deep. Like I said one poor game won't change anything

Most teams play a 4231 now instead of 433 but I'm sure Coq's average position would be deeper than Santi's. Coq is also very good in the air and aggressive enough to win headers, it's all about height + leap. Gabriel and Kos both have better leaps and attack the ball better than Per for example. Someone who can both defend like Coq and control the game like Santi would be perfect but those players are rare, nothing wrong with having one purely defensive player in midfield imo especially if he is flawless defensively like Coq.

One of those Neville comments that really annoys me. He got some strange opinions recently.