Per Mertesacker

Best CB of the Emirates era tbh. Also the best leader.

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I love him. I hope he has serious plans for the academy and he turns out to be the right appointment.

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Canā€™t believe heā€™s been here 7 seasons!! Fuck!!

I remember clear as day when him and Arteta signed not long after the 8-2. But bloody hell, didnā€™t realise it was so many years ago now :open_mouth:

Hope he does really well with the youth. I could definitely see him become a great manager in the future, and hopefully one for our club.

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Absolutely love this guy. His personality resonates through everyone and you can see the players respect him for his positivity and leadership material. Was a beast alongside Kosh for 2 seasons too, told Ɩzil off for being a cock and has Walcott crying himself to sleep because he has no one to bounce off of after a game.

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A top character and deserves the plaudits but is he a club legend and the best defender of the Emirates era so far? No to both imo

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Itā€™s been him or Kos. Kos is probably the more popular choice but I thought Iā€™d put in a spanner to the works and get the discussion juices flowing :grin::wink:

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Hmm.

Heā€™s a legend to me, helped us win our first trophy in 10 years and the way he played in the FA Cup final last season without having barely played a minute the whole year is basically the stuff of legends.

I guess legend gets thrown around a lot and we havenā€™t had much to smile about in the last few years, so I wouldnā€™t mind considering Per a legend. I suppose you could say heā€™s a legend of the Emirates Era.

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Heā€™s also one of only 2 players older than me currently in the squad.

With Per retiring, it makes me feel old :(:disappointed:

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Maybe cult legend suits him more than club legend

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The Fa Cup final thing was remarkable and amazing and showed the guy has real steel. Iā€™d just struggle to put the legend tag on him based on that one game.

There havenā€™t been any legendary Arsenal sides since 2011, can we really say thereā€™ve been legendary individuals within them

I think individuals can be legendary without playing for legendary sides, look at di Natale and Le Tissier.

Mertesacker is more of a legend than Fabregas.

For me Sagna was the best defender of Emirates Era & Koscielny best CB.

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Heā€™s a top guy and has a truly mature and inspiring character our youth could learn a lot from.

Heā€™s not a club legend but a very good servant to the club. Iā€™ll never foget the way he came into that FA Cup final without a game under his belt and put in a performance worthy of a captain and leader.

Thank you Per.

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Tbh you just summed up all the ingredients for a club legend. Per has been my personal favourite player in the last years. For his character, leadership, toughness on the pitch and openness off the pitch. He will be missed.

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Letā€™s not forget how piss poor Mertesacker was after the last world cup. Like he couldnā€™t actually be arsed to show up. Yes that FA Cup performance was great but it embodies this teams attitude that shows up when it feels like it.

Just no. Fabregas is a top 3 player for us despite him leaving us, I mean all the best players left sooner or later anyway, Henry, Vieira, Cesc just left earlier.

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Nah fuck that.

Fabregas is no Arsenal legend.

He was a great player who left when the going got tough.

Mertesacker won 3 FA Cups in arguably our worst period and was always a supreme professional and role model.

If you read that interview with Mertesacker, it seems clear that the last few years he was playing through some serious physical and emotional pain as well. No doubt the World Cup took it all out of him, so the fact that he came back and kept playing for us and kept winning trophies definitely cements him as a legend.

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Also, in what world does Fabregas get to be an Arsenal legend when he only won one FA Cup in 8 seasons with us and then left to join Barcelona and Chelsea when Mertesacker won 3 FA Cups in 7 seasons with us and is retiring as our club captain and going on to be Head of Youth?

Arguably playing with worse players/squads than Fabregas.

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Iā€™d label Mertesacker as a cult hero personally.

Now I think about it, I donā€™t think thereā€™s a single player from the Emirates era who Iā€™d classify as a club legend.

Two winners in two Cup finals, including the one that broke that drought, makes Ramsey about as close as weā€™ve got imo.

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I donā€™t think he left after he realised when the going got tough. I think he realised Arsenal wasnā€™t actually going anywhere and we sort of maxed out with competing for Champions League football while his boyhood club was winning the one trophy after another. Itā€™s hard to remain loyal in a situation like that.

Yes definitely agree with Cristo on this one.

Fabregas was an absolute cā€™nt in his last season with us. The one lasting image I have of him is him sitting in the Nou Camp stands with Pique (the shameless bastard who deserves a thread of his own) sharing a joke while we were getting trounced. Our captain fantastic. Adams and Vieira would have been turning in their graves and they aint even dead yet.

Mertesacker > Fabregas

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