It feels like ever since he’s joined David Luiz has been wheeled out to talk about our defensive mistakes.
After the 2-2 draw with Sp*rs yesterday, the Brazilian was called upon again to give his opinion after errors at the back cost us two goals in the North London derby.
As ever, he sounded sanguine, and seemed to reveal he’d been playing with an injury.
Speaking about criticism, he told Sky Sports, “I think it is normal, in my all my career it has been like that, especially when you are a defender.
“Strikers never lose games unless if they miss a penalty in the last minute, this is football.
“The defenders have to take responsibility and take it in a good way, in a humble way. We need to understand when we make a mistake and say that.”
As for his own performance, he continued, “Today, even with pain I played the whole game and tried to show spirit until the very end.
“I am trying to improve with the team every single day. You have to be mature to understand this kind of moment.”
For more on the 2-2 draw, check out today’s Arseblog
Arsenal 2-2 Sp*rs: Lacazette and Aubameyang save the day as individual errors cost us points again
I know that we have been signing quite a few error prone defenders for the past decade. However, we can’t seem to shake off these lapses. It feels like no matter who we have playing in our backline, we’ll always be prone to making stupid mistakes. It has almost become a part of the club.
I don’t think we’ll ever challenge if we don’t sort it out. It felt like we did when Rob Holding was starting and we went on that undefeated run. I look forward to his return.
I look forward to him returning from his unreturmed absence beacause he was not returned until he was returning which is soon to be returning beacuse of his knee problems which stopped him returning sooner than he should have returned but at least he has been busy doing lots of media stuff to take his mind off not returning for so long so when he does return it will be a glorious return echoing the return of jesus when he fought all those monkey and crocodile hybrids all those years ago.
wat
Now, please return to the unfunny place from which you came …
Wow
Luiz and Sokratis are too rash and too similar, end of.
Be careful, some people are invested in Mustafi being the problem.
They don’t want to hear this. They prefer to seek out scapegoats like Xhaka.
I mentioned last season Mustafi following his Palace meltdown, 7 games straight we fared no better. In fact against Wolves next game, Sokratis and Koscielny shipped 3 goals.
Strangely people stay silent on this inconvenient truth.
Bias much?:D
Think the return of Holding will help & it wouldn’t be a bad idea to replace Xhaka with Chambers – we should at least give him a chance, he surely can’t be as bad can he?
I’d give Luiz a run as a Defensive midfielder. Whatever his flaws he has outstanding distribution and doesn’t panic under pressure. Plus he could drop back and become an extra CB to defend a lead late on.
Good idea lol
I don’t get why people keep saying this. Chelsea tried it years ago and he was awful. His flaws are questionable positioning and rash challenges. They are not facets you want in a central midfielder.
I’m not claiming he’ll transform into Makelele or Kante overnight, I’m merely suggesting he may be a better option than Xhaka.
Why is he a better option?
he can’t even do his assigned role. You want us to experiment him in another position
Xhaka cut out 8 or 9 balls (many aerial) in the middle of the park.
Watch the game.
They’re not flaws you want in a central defender either…
Perfectly spotted.Could be the man we are looking for the job.
Cant be as bad as xhaka
Why not? This is herd thinking. Don;t be a sheep. Granit did nothing wrong against Liverpool. In fact two of our best opportunities was from him working us out of defense and setting off Pepe and later Auba. he also intercepted the ball high up for the Torreira consolation. Against Spurs, he was rash in the box. BUT he intercepted the ball at half way line 8 or 9 times of which may were aerial intercepts cutting balls to Kane and Son out and putting Spurs right back under pressure. He also had a number of good set ups, one… Read more »
I call BS, Santori. Xhaka was THE main culprit against Liverpool for piling on the pressure in the defensive third. The opening minutes were instructive: his one-touch passes were backwards which invited pressure, and his forward passes were to the opposition. It didn’t get that much better. Most of the times he was positive in possession, he had all the time in the world to work the ball, just like in the 2nd half against Spurs. And before anyone says he had a better 2nd half, so did the entire midfield as Spurs gradually retreated.
Or perhaps we should have kept Beilik? I think he would have done a better job in that defensive midfielder role than Xhaka is currently doing/has done. Emery’s unnecessary loyalty to some players seems to cost us (just like last season with Mustafi). Xhaka is error prone and clumsy most times in tackles couple slow decision making ability when he gets the ball which allows opponents to close him down while on the ball (nor does he has the trickily/skills to manoeuvre out of such). Basically, he should be a backup to that position of DM and a quality DM… Read more »
Bielik is not doing a great job at Derby by the way.
The problem is not just solely personal. There were defenders like Cygan, Senderos, partly Mertesacker, then Squil, Mustafi etc, defensive (?) mindfielders like Denilson and Xhaka etc. Our system, our coaching is at fault in big part. Defenders badly positioned and trained to push high are often exposed to counter attacks for example.
I’m gonna be optimistic about our defence; Chambers did well before getting dropped but I think Emery favoured the experience of Luiz for the two big games against Liverpool and the cunts.
Holding is due to come back- he was on the bench yesterday! Sokratis, for all his shithousery, did well and apart from the brainfart for the first goal. Luiz looked nervous at times but he won’t many games tougher than Liverpool away and the cunts. Hopefully we improve from here.
well,we always knew with luiz,we are going to get an downgraded mustafi and not downgraded van djik !
A downgraded mustafi will be you and I
He is just another of chelsea’s hand down sabotage job after gallas and cech.
I wandered around that thought during play (because of his body language), but he confirmed that he played with pain. So he probably had some kind of minor injury to contend with yesterday. Hopefully, he will put in much better work in subsequent matches.
Then that’s up to the clueless Emery to play Chambers instead of an injured Luiz, in our biggest match of the season
More like an upgraded Mustafi.
Not much of an upgrade, despite height, Luiz appears weaker in the air.
Despite experience, he does the same thing.
Now its infected Sokratis. Over committing for first goal then losing Erickson on the rebound.
If the Spuds had been a half decent team, I worry what the score might have been. Luiz was, by Luiz standards, not awful but Son made our back line look rather silly frequently throughout. The fact they played so averagely and we still shipped two goals to them and had to work hard for a point has me apprehensive about the rest of the season. Really great attacking and intricate football going forward, a bit all over the shop defensively – I don’t think one can cancel out the other.
Compare Simeone to Emery. One prides himself on a good defence, the other is an average manager who couldn’t care less about having a good structure
Be carefull dude, I had a dream Mourinho was our manager by October
Guess what? He’s still keeping his job. Not changing. Not today, not tomorrow. Except something goes really bad, that the board intervene and terminate his contract.
Emery in, Emery here, Emery ain’t going nowhere. Kindly deal with it.
You and every other parrot can start blogs of your own – I promise i’d stay away from all of them- and repeat the same crap everyday.
and if he played negative football like Simeone I’ll bet you’ll be the first one to cry for his head.
My respect for fans of clubs like Newcastle increases everyday. They have their grievances but they also try to support their team whatever happens
At Arsenal we have too many fans whose fandom is all about whining
Man city also shipped two goals to them, and they’re the standard now.
Perspective.
You also have to remember whilst Granit made a mistake for the penalty, he cut out 8 or 9 balls in and around the centre line many of which were aerial balls to set Kane and Son off. It put Spurs right back on the defensive. Watch the game again. Sokratis did some good things but also some poor things like the unnecessary challenge for the first goal then losing Erickson and the rugby tackle on Kane late on which could have been a penalty and red. Luiz didn’t do anything particularly wrong although he was too easily passed by… Read more »
Our backline is going to be a WIP all year sadly
All decade long really.
Gutted I couldn’t see the match live :(.
But I can’t wait to see what a back four of _Tierney, Luiz (or Sokratis), Holding, and Bellerin_ can do. Those two fullbacks will push the opposition wingers back and hopefully link up nicely with our front trident of LAP (PAL? ALP?).
Kolasinac had a very good game just saying.
Luiz is going to have the odd mistakes like Mustafi. Not any different.
They harp on about his passing range but Mustafi did the same.
Speaking of centre backs, I’d be interested to know why we didn’t buy Caglar Soyuncu last season. We were supposed to be signing him the whole summer until Leicester signed him at the last minute for a lower fee than we were supposedly going to pay. Apparently he’s been tearing it up so far (most tackles and passes of any player in their game over the weekend, I think). He’d have been available for us in the 2nd half of last season when Holding was injured and the alternative was Mustafi, we wouldn’t have had to buy Luiz and we… Read more »
Because he was injured at that time and it was quite a risk for Leicester. It looked like it was a bad decision the whole of last season and right now it looks like taking the risk has paid off. But hardly one to blame Arsenal, if you ask me.
Tierney was injured when we signed him this season and we took that risk. Soyuncu wouldn’t have started the season with us as first choice, either. We could have sold Chambers to Palace and used that money to sign him.
I wonder if we ever were in for him. If we were, I don’t understand why we didn’t make it happen.
Yeah, I think we just passed on him.
I’ve also been interested to know whether we made a mistake or not so been tracking what Leicester fans have been saying about his performances, and it’s very mixed. Seems like he has good moments but is very erratic in others.
The one I think we might regret missing out on is Sebastian Haller at West Ham. Has elements of both Giroud & Laca in his game
There was no two ways about it. We needed to spend on CBAck but price was at a premium bc supply was limited. The reverse could be said about winger. We had plenty of options there. I am happy we bought Pepe but we could have also just as well done with a Fekir or Ziyech at an eventual (MUCH) lower price if there was option to structure an installment deal there. We simply needed to commit resources into the Cback an early. Instead we tried to extend (foolishly) and over the hill Koscielny. He did us a favour otherwise… Read more »
Imagine the response if Arsenal bought an injured CB? This place would melt.
@cousin
We did but he’s on loan lol
He was very underwhelming for Leicester last season and basically took an entire year to acclimatise. He looks good now because he’s adapted to the league/team, but he wasn’t this good last year and you can bet if he was an Arsenal player we’d have been hounding him out the club by February
‘Another David Luiz article’ – don’t be hard on yourself, it wasn’t that bad an article, there weren’t several errors or anything gone missing.
Correct bc Luiz is a poor panic buy by any means
Have we got stronger and more assured without Mustafi?
Granit did not make any major mistakes at Liverpool.
yet some people prefer to find favorite scapegoats rather than stare truth in their face.
I know we have error prone players but it isnt helped by a lack of defensive system. The number of times we were outnumbered in midfield while defending a quick transition showed that. You can only expect the defenders to read the game right 90 to 95 percent of the time. When they don’t it seems like there is a gaping hole and an alarming individual error. I do feel that most of the time we have weak moments in transition.
True, but the first goal was from a long kick from Lloris. That’s not difficult to defend. Why did Sokratis charge forward to challenge for the ball when it was clear that Xhaka was already going for it? If Xhaka wasn’t going to win it, why would Sokratis think he could, from behind? Then he completely ignored Eriksen when that was the only danger. Meanwhile Luiz didn’t track anyone and Leno palmed a daisy-cutter about a metre away when he could have thrown his cap on it. None of that is to do with a lack of defensive system. I’ll… Read more »
The only thing I disagree with in yours comment is Leno’s culpability in that goal. Not that he doesn’t own part of the blame, but the reason why. If you look at the replay from behind the goal, he was caught off guard by Lamela’s shot and was completely wrong footed. For some reason, he didn’t move his feet in time. That lead to the weak save
The “caught off guard” you mentioned was down to two Arsenal players going for the same ball and both being beaten to it by Kane. If Sok had stayed where is was and let Xhaka challenge alone it would have still resulted in the ball reaching Lamela but he might have spotted Eriksen’s run and been able to clear. I yelled out get back when they both went for the header and after seeing the replay I believe their is a confidence problem with our defense that stems from Xhaka. They don’t trust him and Sok believed he had a… Read more »
Leno could have done better.
Still few chambers was unfairly dropped for Luiz
Should be Chambers + Luiz imo
Please tell us what Luiz did that was so bad yesterday? Most interceptions and 100% tackle rate.
Seems like people have their perception on Luiz and nothing will shift from it.
His mistake last week hasn’t helped, mind.
He’s known as an error prone (but decent) defender but Chambers hadnt done anything wrong to lose his place
Vinai, It’s not just about stats. Look at the first goal, he completely abandoned his position. The 2 fullbacks where further behind him and Sokratis. That attack by Spurs was so easy to defend if everyone stayed in their position, it’s criminal that it lead to a goal
First goal Erickson’s was more Sokratis over committing when Granit was already challenging, thereby leaving gap behind.
Then Luiz was too easily turned (again) but Leno should have had a firmer hand and on the rebound, Sokratis was ball watching.
Two games in a row now he has gone for the interception and did not get there in time. He is a CB. His job should always be to keep the play in front of him. Too aggressive trying to turn to transition, and getting on the wrong shoulder. He doesn’t have the pace to recover when beaten in that way. Needs to chill out in this regard, as he is a good defender in general.
He doesn’t have the dynamics.
We basically panic bought a band aid.
We really needed to invest the money in a much more robust and mobile player with the way we play (and in a back 4)
BUT we got a poor deal again.
We were distracted by (an overly expensive) Saliba deal then tried to retain an over the hill Koscielny and when we felt we did not want to spend on Cback, we then made a bid on Tierney which was a good buy but frankly could have waited)
Just maybe emery doesn’t think highly of chambers? He sent him out on loan last season. First chance to drop him he did. Not that I’m saying he’s better than luiz or sok but he hasn’t made mistakes yet to be dropped.
All defenders are by their very nature ‘error prone’. We’re probably going to concede goals whether we play Sokratis, Holding, Luiz, or Chambers … because now that Monreal and Koscielny have left this is all we’ve effectively got. (Mustafi and Mavropanos aside.) Maybe we should rush Holding back, or lean on our excellent defensive midfielder, Chambers? Luiz was just fine when Chelsea were winning a bucket of trophies. In 2014 PSG paid a record £50M for him. In 2016 Chelsea paid £30M to have him back. Given the mess they’re in he’d probably be first on the team sheet for… Read more »
I’m not so sure. They sold him to a rival, while he still had 2 years left with only zouma, Christensen & Tomori available. There must be a reason they did that.
Making excuses?
Mustafi never made as many errors as many imagined but there was always an unforced error in him.
Unfortunately Luiz is the same but older.
Laca should be our captain
We don’t want to jinx him.
I thought he had a good game – won all his tackles.
He was Ok.
Could have done better for first goal but lacked a bit of dynamism.
However nothing glaring like at Liverpool.
Once fit, Holding and Chambers should get a chance to lead our defence and form a good partnership. I’ve had it with these fraud centre backs. Why do we always find them?? Squillachi, Silvestre, the 2 we have now, Senderos…have I missed anyone
Agree on trying Holding and Chambers as centreback pairing, but Sokratis and Luiz are certainly not poor defenders. They just don’t strike a decent partnership.
Wow the hubris.
Not poor defenders?
What did Luiz do against Liverpool and Sokratis for first goal against Spurs.
how would that had been if it were Mustafi.
Why are we still leaking goals without Mustafi? granit did nothing wrong at Liverpool
..Wake up.
That sounds a bit desperate and hopeful.
Chambers does not seem to enjoy full confidence if Unai is starting calamity Luiz.
Holding maybe can come in to do a job but lest we forget, his best work last season is in a back 3. Back 4 pairing for him remains unproven.
Because we panic bought a band aid Squillaci signing. No better than Mustafi, maybe more experienced but does not evidently help. Paired with Sokratis being rash, we have a very dodgy pairing. Luiz fully culpable for Liverpool MISTAKES. Never mind his new to the team, he is experienced enough to know. BOTH mistakes inexcusable (imagine had he been Mustafi). BUT Sokratis against Spurs, first goal he over committed challenging for the ball when Granit was already there. Left a big gap which Luiz did not cover well. Then when Leno spilt it, Sokratis not switched on instead ball watching. Late… Read more »