I am afraid that if Arsene do not bring in extra proven CB (at least 2) , this will be another scapegoat for not winning the championship for another year. Last year at least we got TV and Gallas (Hoping them to be fit for the entire season). This year we have TV and Koscielny (not proven). Just imagine if TV gets injured, Arsenal will be looking to outscore their opponent everytime as the defence will not be able to keep a clean sheet.

I mean to give Nordveit and Koscielny a chance is fine but if they cannot take the physical side of the game. It will be another season without trophy. Why does Wenger always gamble on the defence when he knows that defence win championship. This will be why Fabregas choose to leave Arsenal which is Arsene’s own making by saving a few bucks on CB.

there was a lot of news when he signed for valencia that they paid around 18 million euros for the guy so now he might be around 20-25 million euros

veloso will come for less than 13 million euros so I am sure if wenger does buy a DM its going to be Veloso

Martin Taylor is actually a very clean player – in the past 6 years he has received 7 yellow and 1 red card in 133 matches. (In comparison, Lorik Cana received 12 yellow and 1 red card in his 33 matches for Sunderland this season). I don’t think Taylor was trying to “send a message” at all – he just mistimed his tackle very badly. Again, there’s a reason he’s spent most of his career in the Championship – tackling is a skill, and he’s apparently not very good at it.

Shawcross is somewhere in the middle – he does commit a lot of fouls and his tackle was worse than Taylor’s (but nowhere near as bad as Smith’s). But again, I think it was just a bad decision and a bad tackle – not meant with the intention of “sending a message”. Every player makes bad tackles, even great players – Vieira and Bergkamp both made their share of bad tackles.

We should be criticizing these bad tackles, definitely, but the thing is, tackling is a legitimate part of the game. I don’t think Arsenal fans spent so much time talking about bad tackles when it was Vieira making them. Honestly, I think the worst “tackle” we’ve been subjected to in recent years is Adebayor’s swipe at van Persie’s face. Players can recover from a broken leg; Adebayor was literally inches away from taking out one of RVP’s eyes. His stamp on Fabregas ranks pretty high up there too… those were objectively bad tackles. I don’t think you can really put Taylor and Shawcross in the same level, even if the injuries they caused were much worse.

I would say it’s true that Premier League footballers suffer more injuries from bad tackles, but a lot of the players you think of as injury-prone – Owen, Rosicky, van Persie, etc. – get a lot of injuries that have nothing to do with bad tackles. Think of Owen’s knee injury at WC2006 where there were no players within 10 feet of him, or Rosicky’s muscular problem that kept him out for more than a year.

Teams we scared of players like Vieira, Sol and Adams to pull that kind of crap on us before but we are too “nice” now

Balotelli is a fantastic striker in the Ronaldo mould whereas JET is not. Balotelli also has much more pace and is generally a better athlete. JET looks fat in comparison.

What club did you think it was about?

In the under 21s tournament even though hes 5ft 11 he looked physical, strong, looked a beast.

You see him now hes looks alot slimmer, skinny i dont know how he would cope physically in the premiership.

IF he can get back his physical shape i think theres a quality holding midfielder in him