on Per Mertesacker’s ankle problem...
Unfortunately he has had surgery and we have lost him for a while. How long I don’t know. He had reconstruction of his ligaments. So it will be long term.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archiv ... ertesacker

Had a similar surgery before signing for us I believe. From the pictures he posted on facebook of it, will be lucky to play this season or at the Euro's.

And we play on that pig sty AGAIN on Saturday. Geez.

I have to admit, this is one injury that I really care little about. I've been so unsurprisingly unimpressed by this guy hopefully his absence will simply prove how little we miss him. At the same time it'll be at a cost. £8m and £80k p/w.

Not without sympathy mind, I don't wish injuries on many players and certainly not for him to miss out on any big tournaments for his country. Especially when they could be potential upsets at the Euro's.

Eh? and you've posted this after we've just been stuffed 4 nil in his first game out.

Whilst everyone goes on about how slow he is, he reads the game excellently and I suspect his organizational skills will be sorely missed.

Upset for him, and while his signing left me a little cold, it's yet another injury and interruption to the defence. Hope he recovers soon.

No. I posted it prior the FA Cup tie. If anybody thinks Mertesacker + Vermaelen/Koscielny is better than a Vermaelen/Koscielny partnership I do worry.

Start to worry then. It's obvious our best defense has the tall handsome german innit.

Well so far we have played 2 games without him and conceded 6 goals, not a great record.
Wenger confirmed tonight that he is out for the season.

The bloke has been at the heart of a defence that's away record is only worsened by Wigan and Blackburn and sits 10th as far as goals conceded go, along with WBA (35). His tackling and interceptions record this season has been shocking and directly he's been at fault for a number of goals.

But forget that, we've conceded a whack of goals in the last couple of games so let's all of a sudden decide Mertesacker might be good. In light of two shocking team performances.

Koscielny has been a part of that defence too, and yet he's praised beyond belief. Szezsney too, despite being number 1 goalkeeper has escaped any kind of critiscm.

I think it's time we start accepting that as a team we defend poorly. Whether its Djourou, Vermaelen, Squllaci, Koscielny or Mertesacker. We're just not very good at defending.

35 goals conceded is poor granted, but to blame Mertesacker for that is slightly skewed logic in my opinion when you consider we had conceded 10 of those goals in 3 games before he arrived. So his record is played 21 league games and the team conceded 25 goals in those games. So his goals conceded per game is 1.19 per game
Koscielney's record is played in 23 league games this season and the team conceded 32 goals in those games.so his goals conceded per game is 1.39
Added to that, and these are quite amazing facts, the most he has played with a settled back four this season is 4 times, yes 4 times I said. That settled back 4 was Djourou Koscielney Vermaelen And Mertesacker. So that means that his most settled defence this season has been Four centre backs, one playing left full and one playing right full. Added to that fact, in his 21 league games he has played in 12 (yes 12) different back fours.
Is it any wonder that a player who was signed on the last day of the transfer deadline day, did not have a pre season with his team mates, and was coming into a team whose confidence was decimated has struggled a bit with the Premier League ??? I think most foreign defenders would struggle when you look at all the facts that he has had to contend with.

Just as an aside John Terrys record this season is 1.14 goals conceded per game

How many goals have those two cost us directly? Nowhere near as many as Mertesacker.

As a unit we have been woeful, individually you can safely say that Koscielny has been a god send and comfortably the best of a bunch playing badly together.

I appreciate what you're getting at too Jay with how late he arrived and everything and he's still adapting. BUT, it's not like he's come from Mars. There's been no language barrier for a start, and that's got to be one of the hardest things to get used too. I just honestly think that he has shown himself to be a real liability in our defence.

I do understand what you are saying balboa but I think that the most difficult thing for foreign players to get used to is the pace and physicality of he Premier League. I think he fact that he is not the quickest has hindered him in settling in. Remember Bobby Pires was quite poor in his first season with us as was Samir Nasri, it really does take time to settle into he English game and I think that we really won't be able to fully judge Mertesacker until next season at the earliest.

I don't disagree at all Jay. Only one manager I've ever heard put a time scale on how long they believe it takes for a foreign player to adapt to The Premiership. That was Stuart Pearce, who said he believed it took in the region of 9 months, which is a season in reality. It's all well and good when you already have the personnel in front of a new signing to allow him that sort of time to settle. When you don't however, and couple if with asking a slow player to get used to a quick tempo league, it's only going to cause further bedding in problems. At one point he couldn't even complete 90 minutes for a few weeks, so I completely appreciate your points.