Mertesacker Praises The Defence. Should They Really Be Praised?

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Arsenal’s central defender Per Mertesacker was satisfied by the way the defence handled the job in the Aston Villa match saying that they did a great job to stop Villa’s dangerous chances, but should Villa have had so many dangerous occasions to score?

“We felt the pressure because of the bad game against Man City [on Sunday] but we have now won away from home again,” said Mertesacker.

“We were under pressure but we found a good solution with the first goal. We created some good chances but not as much as we thought at the beginning as Villa were always quick. Gabriel Agbonlahor was in some good situations [to score] but defensively we did a good job.

“Villa are a confident side. We thought because of their bad run that they were struggling, but I didn’t feel that today.”

The fact of the matter is that Aston Villa had quite a few chances to score and they shouldn’t have been such a big threat. This time luck was by Arsenal’s side, but that doesn’t happen all that often so the defence must improve itself more and more. Perhaps that will happen once the full-backs won’t actually be centre-backs. What do you think?

3 thoughts on “Mertesacker Praises The Defence. Should They Really Be Praised?

  1. On this subject we are gonna have to disagree coz of differing views. I dont believe we defended well but its a folly to view defence in isolation. How does the ball get to defenders if its not past midfielders. Remember Gilberto? We did not concede many goals from set pieces when he was at the helm. He was a proper DM who did his job anonymously. Prefering to be a nuissance to opposition in a calm quiet way but then upfront we had lots of firepower unlike now. These days when Song need to provide killer pass now and then means his duties are divided and so is his focus. get me?

    Before we get into blame game lets congratulate the team. OK Martesacker did’nt cover himself in glory or Vermaelen who was indecision when heading back but playing fine against Citeh and get nowt and then playing so so yesterday and nicking it is sweeter than pu..y

  2. Yes of course they should be praised. Villa had a hell of a lot of chances and cut through us a lot but when you have a CM playing at right back and a CB playing at left back with Frimpong (who had a very bad game) as cover then they did a great job.

    Vermaelen was at fault for the goal but regardless of that played well. For an away game against a determined side, two of the midfield players playing really badly, Ramsey and Frimpong, meaning Villa had most of the possession and dominated the midfield, the defence played excellently. Mertezaker and Koscielny played blinders. The amount of times Coqeulin was caught out on his side and the amount of times mert came out to cover him and successfully snuff out danger shows how well he played.

    Mert himself was intelligent enough not to take out albrighten after Verms sloppy pass. If he did it would have been a second yellow , a free kick and the rest of the game with ten men and a suspension for one of our CB’s.

    Make no mistake, they kept us in the game and only allowed Villa 2 shots on target. It was our midfield that played badly and it was our full backs who had almost no cover from walcott and gervinho that were our weaknesses. Kos and Mert had to cover their asses a lot and did so really well.

    That said for as as ramsey played that one goal saving tackle he made was worth having him on the pitch.

  3. mertesacker is not good enough for a top10 team…..woefully short of power, speed and mobility.

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