For me there have a been a few players that have stood out this season for us, and a number of players that the fans would probably list as these stand out players of the season so far. For me one player that is surprisingly under stated in these terms, is a German international, no it's not Podolski, it's Per Mertesacker. I emailed into the Arsenal Fans Forum on Arsenal Player last week and raised the point that, some people still don't rate him and that I can't understand this. Last season before his injury we had the 2nd or 3rd best defence at home in the league, and this season I think he has been absolutely superb. His performance at Manchester City stands out for me as his best performance, but on the whole this season he has been excellent, and of course he scored against the enemy last week, which instantly makes him a legend, and what a header it was by the way!
Per Mertesacker's strength and experience I think has really shone through this season so far, and I think it is clear that he is really starting to get comfortable in the Premier League, and in my opinion this is fantastic news. I don't want to make it sound like I am saying that he is as good or better than this person because that is not what I am saying, but I do think he is the closest we have had to Tony Adams (Mr Arsenal), since his retirement. He does have some similar qualities. No, he's not the quickest player in the side as many fans seem to love pointing out, but what he certainly has in his locker his extreme strength and intelligence, but also he compensates for the fact that he is not the quickest, by using his body and positioning himself very intelligently to as I say compensate for his perceived lack of pace. In my opinion he is superior to all of our CBs! Apart from Sebastian Squillaci of course!! (What a player).
Another area that I think he has shone in recently is his composure and intelligence on the ball. I was reading some stats recently about this, and Per is our 2nd most accurate passer behing Mikel (who by the way is one of the best passers in Europe, according to the stats), sitting around the early 90%'s. Which in itself is very impressive. But when you watch the Arsenal matches in recent weeks, we sometimes look a bit panicky in the midfield on the ball, but when the ball go backs to him I almost feel more relaxed when he gets the ball. Because he is just so calm and composed on the ball which is fantastic for a team that tries to play in the style and philosophy that we do.
Finally I believe that his discipline is better than the rest of our defenders. Why? Well a classic example of why I think this was the Fulham game at home a couple of weeks back, where we drew 3-3. Now I know conceding 3 goals at home, does not seem great on a defender, however I think it wasn't really his mistakes that led to these 3 goals. This brings me on to the issue of discipline. Sometimes when I am sitting in the stadium I see the likes of Koscielny and Vermalean, Sagna e.t.c. Charging forwards almost completely forgetting their defensive duties, and this was a real issue against Fulham, we saw the likes of Koscielney, Vermalean and Sagna, completely out of position, and then Mertesacker using his experience and discipline to stay quite deep, because what happens? Well we loose the ball they (Fulham on this occasion), play the ball into the space, which sucks out Mertesacker to try and cover the space others have left him isolated with, which leaves caps in the centre, which is EXACTLY how Fulham scored their second goal. Now you could say that Mertescaker should perhaps be ordering these players back, however my point is Mertesacker's discipline is key to us.
All in all, my point here is, that Mertesacker is in my view a vastly unfairly under rated player, and in some quarters harsly criticised. The fact is he has over 90 caps for Germany and is only 27 or so. You don't get that if you are slow, clumsy, dim witted, as I heard on several occasions from fans, and I think that this season he has been absolutely superb! And I would like to think that people will start to give him credit that he deserves. I know that Saturday was a very disapointing result, however he was our best player, and he kept Benteke who is an extremely dangerous and strong striker by the way, under control for the 90 mins, and made some superb interceptions and sliding tackles. He was MOTM for sure! This lad is for me an unsung hero in our team, without him I think we would be in trouble, because as we saw Vs Chelsea earlier in the season the Koscielney Vermalean axis is a bit shaky, Mertesacker provides balance to the defence. And in my opinion this is starting to become more obvious!!!
UP THE ARSENAL!!!!!!
@Mr_arsenal_blog
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