Every player has different strengths and weaknesses. Saying never Yaya/Vieira potential is off base when they are 2 completely different types of players with different skillsets anyway. They only really had size and close ball control in common. Yaya was never the defensive shield Vieira was. You could also argue Vieira had suspect passing at times too but he played a vital role breaking up play, carrying the ball and keeping the passing simple within his limitations. Yaya was more often than not an all action attacking midfielder.
Diabyâs ability to drive up the pitch taking 2 opposition players out of the game before squaring it to a more creative player could have been his key role in the system. I think he was getting better with his decision making though before he finally broke down anyway. His reading of the game to quickly intercept the ball is also forgeten about. Weâre talking about a player whoâs body was pretty much broke down at the age of 24 and had minor outings there after.
Having said that we can agree he overcomplicated it and lost the ball a bit too much when he should of played it simple. I think he was getting past that by the time of that Liverpool performance but he was physical done by then unfortunately.
Didnât he get this serious injury at like 19 years of age ? Hard to say what his ceiling would have been, what was Yaya Toure doing at 19 years of age ?
That this guy got continued extensions (and pay rises to boot) confirms for me that Wenger could pretty much do whatever he wanted when it came to contracts.
They had such a medicre team at the time⌠Allen, Spearing, ShelveyâŚ
On the other hand, our team looks quite balanced there. Shame Arteta and Diaby couldnât play together for a bit longer, I think they suited each other perfectly.
Btw⌠Ban me, but Iâll repeat it again⌠We would have been so much better if we spended that Ozil money on Suarez or Higuain, or some top striker. That team was desperate for a guy like that and we ended spending a fortune on a positon where we had Cazorla who was already one of the best 10s in the league that season (2013) and ended up being mediocre when he got pushed to the wing next season.
Ozil, no matter how good he was, was just another example of horrible squad planning by Wenger. Simply he was just panic buy.
IDK why I remember there being rumors about Madrid increasing the price over and over. Maybe it was just what Arsenal was leaking in order to cover for the fact we were having an awful summer.
