Enough Is Enough, When Will Arsenal Replace Gilberto?

Since being enveloped in a Twitter addiction, I've discovered that - not only does every spare moment revolve around checking updates and tweets from people whose opinion I respect - but that my vocabulary has gleaned new words. It has grown. These words would be ill at ease in a conversation with your family over dinner. These new found words though - are commonplace when talking football. 

AKB. WOB. Trequartista. Double-pivot. Just a few that seem to crop up with regularity. Another two I've noticed that have spread like chlamydia on a booze-cruise in Magaluf are 'CDM' and 'Holding midfielder'.

Now I'm not saying that these phrases are fresh out of the box. Anyone who has had even the vaguest fling with Football Manager will be accustomed. The point is though, that for the last year, you cannot look at your timeline or peruse a blog without seeing these terms peppering the page. Case in point - look what you're reading.

A holding midfielder gives free license to the more creative players in your team. It is a safety net that allows them to wreak merry havoc on your opposition. With the amount of creativity in our ranks - this position must be filled.

I wanted to clear a few misconceptions up. Like a cyber poopscoop I'm here to clean up the litter that is confusing some and annoying others. 

The latest thing to be doing the rounds is that since Gilberto Silva we have never had a decent holding man. Our Brazilian musician left our club in 2008 for Greek shores and since then a Silva-shaped aperture has been left in his stead. That is SIX YEARS. Since then apparently we have had no end of charlatans attempting to convince our manager that they are the answer to Good Ship Arsenal leaking goals. 

Song. Jack. Ramsey. Arteta. Flamini. Even Santi has had a nibble. Players have arrived and left, skulking off to pastures new when the experiment to be our human shield has failed.  Are these players failures though? Are they fit to wear the badge? Surely if they cannot fulfill the Managers wishes then they should be packed up with polystyrene chips and carted off? 

Gilberto had Edu, Flamini, Cesc and Vieira as central midfield cohorts and rivals for his spot. One by one they left until Cesc was his partner. Flamini took his place and left Gilberto on the bench for a time but Mathieu as we all know left us in the lurch to go to Italy. Edu, Cesc and Vieira didn't play in his position though. So when Gilberto wasn't playing through injury we would be exposing our soft underbelly as we have done since he left for Panathinaikos. 

Have we needed a holding midfielder for that long? Did we even incorporate a space for a holding midfielder in our attacking line-up in our barren years?

Alexandre Song Billong was labelled as a defensive-minded midfielder. He was meant to inhabit the space between midfield and defence and be the marshall for danger. As we are all painfully aware though, he had a penchant for leaving his post unattended whilst marauders ransacked our goal. He set up a few goals for the Dutch traitor with raking passes and suddenly he had delusions of grandeur. Hell, his delusions were so vivid he probably was of the opinion he created the phrase for which he was afflicted. Much like our full-backs of today Song liked to rove too far in enemy territory. The seasons we had him in our line-up were akin to having no CDM. He just didn't have the technical capacity for such a role.

Flamini has that capacity. The problem with wee Matty is that he is ever so slightly unhinged. He resembles a Gallic Gattuso but with fewer multiple-personalities. He will never give up the chase, he will continue to chomp on ankles until his heart ceases to beat. The problem with Mathieu is that his passion often morphs seamlessly into needless aggression and rash tackling. His games to bookings ratio will not be pretty reading.

Mikel Arteta at Everton was a fine playmaker who illuminated an average team and allowed them to attain positions in the league that really should have been out of their reach. His vision shone and his set-pieces were a joy. His move to us was written in the stars if you look back. His style of play suited us perfectly and our free-kicks weren't exactly going to threaten the Goal of the Month lists. He should've been another jigsaw piece in our attack that made the most of his eagle-eye vision and passing expertise.

Instead Wenger decides his unique set of skills would be best employed sitting back. A deep-lying playmaker perhaps? A chance to spray the ball hither and thither to running targets? No. You can tell that with Mikel's tendency to sideways pass and nullify his attacking threat that he is under instruction to be the teams barometer. To keep us ticking over, keep the ball moving and keep us calm. It doesn't matter if the ball doesn't go forward, we will make chances. We MUST keep possession. Arteta does this well.  Does he chase back energetically and place expertly-timed tackles in?  He does - but not with the frequency that a specialist holding midfielder does.  

His pass stats are always amazing but you need athleticism, you need agility, you need a defensive mindset. Since Claude Makalele revolutionised the role with Real, the posts have moved for this position. It is now no longer enough to just be the security blanket that the defence needs when their team is on the attack. Arteta is a square peg in a round hole. A good player that even if in his peak would not possess the powers to do the job that the finest CDM's could.  

Fernandinho at City. Busquets at Barca. These players sit in their trench and do battle week after week. Meanwhile Yaya Toure and Iniesta can rest easy and apply their scheming brains to unpicking the meanest of defences. It is tactically sound.

I've been a big advocate of playing Jack and Ramsey as the '2' in a 4-2-3-1. They have the tactical nous, they have the discipline, they can tackle, they have the stamina. If one aids the attack, the other sits back and mops up. They are of the right age and already have played together rather frequently. If played consistently in these roles the understanding they could forge could be devastating in the years to come. 

It needs to happen every week though. Wenger has shown signs he is uncertain of his best eleven this season. If we had the luxury of a full squad to choose from - I don't know if he could pick his strongest team. I think he sees Jack and Ramsey as a pair as the most talented player at his disposal - Ozil - is played out of position to ensure they both have a spot in the starting line up. If he could settle upon a team that included Wilshere and Aaron in this capacity then I feel confident that it would reap rewards. 

Let's be honest though - Wenger knows infinitely more than us.

Why continue to play Arteta in that role though? Why in 6 years hasn't he signed a midfield general? It is great to hear that Wenger was close to getting Carvalho from Sporting - but he left it until the last day of the window and was therefore open to being held ransom. I support his stance regarding agents' fees but he shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. 

A man with such an extensive knowledge of players around the world and he only has one target for that position? We are now left with the prospect of Flamini playing the lions share of games until at least January due to injuries. 

Since Gilberto left us, we haven't had a carbon-copy defensive midfielder that ticks all boxes. We have had players that could tackle, but not track back. Players that could distribute, but not organise. There are many we could target in January. The famous line that gets churned out is that we are only "a couple of players short of really challenging".

I believe it is just the one player. We have defensive strength we exhibited that last season when we have more than two senior players available. We have an array of attacking threats. We just need the sentry that stands guard whilst we pillage.

An empty treatment room wouldn't go amiss either.

http://twitter.com/jokmanafc 

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