Senderos is an old fashion central half, strong and big, best suit when the team is defending deep, to clear everything in the air.
Arsenal’s playing style though is a high pressure attacking game, pushing the back four up high with an attempt to catch the opponent offside. The downside though is when the offside trap fails, a big lad like Senderos would always find himself struggling to track back on time.
In other words, Arsenal’s defending up high tactic would always make the big central halfs look bad. You can throw John Terry, Garracher there, they wouldn’t be looking anymore prettier than Senderos. Therefore Kolo Toure is so crucial to our defence.
A veteran central half like Adams had years’ experience in him which allowed him to read the play before it happened. Yet experience can only be gained with time. To expect a 20-year-old young central half to be error-free under the current Arsenal (defending up high) tactic is unrealistic.
The thing is - while Senderos has committed his share of mistakes, his strong presence at the back make us less vulnerable in the air on occassions when we needed to drop back to defend a lead.
The bottom line is - football is a TEAM game. The Boro match, for instance, did we draw because the mistake Senderos committed? Or did we draw because we didn’t play well as a team?
Even if Senderos did not concede the penalty, would we be able to beat Boro? Personally, I believe it probably would have ended up as a 0-0 draw anyway.
18 Responses to “Senderos”
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February 5th, 2007 at 8:19 am
I agree and while I’ve elaborated in detail why at the end of the previous thread I reiterate and say that Philippe Senderos is nowhere near as diabolical and brainless as some people are saying. Reading of a game comes with experience and Senderos is 20 as Andez said. Let a couple of years go by and you will see why exactly AW rates him so highly.
Theres one point though: Maybe Toure and Gallas can be put through a routine in training where they play with both Sendy n Djourou. What this does is when teams like Bolton, ShefU, Watford or any other long ball team play Sendy can play in there. Against a fast team who counterattack and have skilful strikers Djourou is surely the better option with his skill on the ball where he can bring it out of defense without hoofing it pointlessly forward. Toure and Gallas if fully fit are ofcourse first choice but if both Sendy n Djourou are fit and Kolo or Willy injured it would be great if AW could make a choice based on the opposition.
However this requires a perfect understanding between all four CB’s and an ability to intutively understand each other’s game.
However I beleive we might have just about beaten Boro…just just about…maybe a 1-0 but not more than that. I predicted a 1-1 though and got a 1-1 so I’m not too disappointed about it all.
February 5th, 2007 at 8:32 am
It’s not just pace Senderos lacks. He also looks like he’s about to crap his pants every time gets the ball in any sort of confined space and all to often any momentum we try to build up his ruined by his rash hoofs into row z or twenty yards past Henry. Even the other day, Henry could be seen mouthing “calm down” to Senderos after he had launched another misdirected scud missile.
He also gets underneath nearly every high ball which means his supposed aerial strength is nothing to wax lyrical about and his clearances from low crosses induce heart in mouth moments almost every time.
He plays the man instead of the ball. He must think the referee is stupid or something.
He has quite good positional sense and is strong in the tackle. That’s about it.
And, as I’ve mentioned before, when Chelsea need a goal their defence always play high up the pitch and Terry does not look ill at ease at all. Quite the opposite. He is master at intercepting balls to the forwards and rampaging forward.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Yes Sendy looks confused and shaky, but he is 20 or 21 playing for a big club like Arsenal in their back line. Arsenal as we all know push up so much, and makes the defenders job hard. As mentioned up.
Sendy is a good sub for now, to come in whenever needed. He can gain the needed experience from theses appearances.
With Arsenal, and the injuries we have, we will need subs that are simply capable at any time. Arsenal will always have injuries. Simply, its been like this for years. The was Arsenal plays, practice, forces the players to the limit. Look at Ali, Clichy, A. Cole, … But it pays for us.
I dunno, when Gallas will be back and for how long he can actually give. He is already 29. Almost 30.
I think if Arsenal played 11v11 against Boro, Arsenal would have won it. You can tell that Arsenal were dragging the game toward the end.
Oh, well. Lets see how well we can cope with Bolton and the coming games !!!
February 5th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Phillip Senderos is not a baby, he is 22 next week. He has played in a World Cup and other international torunaments; he has played around 50 games for Arsenal. If he was going to become a great player - and a club of Arsenal’s stature needs great players all over the pitch - he should be showing it by now. At his age he needs to demonstrate that he can handle the pressure better, the last month alone he has being making several fresh-air clearances in the box - it’s hardly inspiring. Sometimes his heading is good, but I have seen a few games recently where he has got it completely wrong and the ball has gone over his head four or five times in a game because he has completely mistimed his jump. Once the striker has turned him he’s finished, and he tries to wrestle them to the ground irrespective of whether he’s in danger of getting a red or giving away a penalty.
Arsenal is not Wigan, Portsmouth or Bolton, it is a massive club that is expected to compete for major trophies - Arsenal needs good strong, reliable center backs to win things, not players of such blindingly obvious limited ability. I’m not saying every game he plays is bad, but what he can do is limited and he’s already as far as I’m concerned gone past that stage where he’s going to make a gargantuan leap forward.
When Gallas is fit, Senderos will be immediately ousted from the team. I am sure Wenger rates Djorou higher too, as he was keeping Senderos out before his injury. I think we all agree that Djourou has shown a much better aptitiude for the game than Senderos, he’s much faster and much more comfortable on the ball - he has also makes far fewer mistakes than Senderos whenever I’ve seen him play.
Therefore it seems that Senderos is a 4th choice centre back, and I think when the others are fit he should probably be sold while Arsenal can get some money for him. Senderos might do ok playing for a backs-to-the-wall team where nothing much is expected of him and he can play without the pressure.
There’s no point saying he will come good, because he there’s no evidence to base that opinion on, he’s never shown any tangible maturation.
February 5th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
His 2nd year plus WC games. How much more rope does he need?
February 5th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
“Young Frankenstein” has become the type of liablity that Cygan (the man he replaced) was. If you don’t have pace for the way Arsenal want to play, you have no upside. Either Connolly or O’Ceariull might push him out of that 4th spot.
Cygan by the way has become a stud defender for Villareal. Senderos needs to find his bright future in Spain or Italy (if they ever play again). He needs a different type of team, in a slower paced league to possibly fulfill his ‘potential’.
If we thought Senderos crapped his pants against Drogba, just WTF will he do when he meets John Carew (Aston Villa, Feb. 24). Drogba is a light weight bean pole compared to Carew. I watched Carew (when at Lyon) DESTROY Real Madrid’s backline in the a CL game. John Carew should have been charged with child abuse. You had Ramos, Cannavaro (World Footballer of the Year, what a f*****g joke that was), Helguera and Roberto Carlos (master of the ‘professional’ hatchet job)trying to maim Carew and being run over for their efforts. It is a testament to the stupidity of Houllier that he sells him despite not having a single healthy CF in Lyon’s lineup. Now Lyon are winless in 2007 because they can’t score. But I digress. My point is that we will need a smart defender pacy defender for Carew and only Gallas fits that description.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Whew! AV rescheduled March 14th.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
in utterly hilarious news, flamini was called up by france. ha!
i guess that shows one the present level of the internationals.
February 5th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
I’ve never been impressed with Senderos. He’s sooooooo bad that he makes Cygan and Stepanovs look world class!!!!!!
February 5th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
The way I see it
- Gallas + Toure are first choice
- Senderos is, at best, 3rd choice, maybe even 4th with Djourou giving him a run for his money
Isn’t that great??
February 6th, 2007 at 1:16 am
I don’t think Senderos is stupid by any means, but I don’t believe the hype either. When Yakubu slows down guess what he, the referee, and everyone watching was expecting to happen? And Senderos didn’t let any one down. Yakubu is on his weaker foot on the wrong side of the goal. Senderos should have made him stay on his left foot and prove he was good enough to beat Lehmann from there. I’m sure Lehmann would have preferred to make that save than a penalty, and I’m sure every one would have preferred to finish with eleven men instead of ten. A defender’s judgement has got to be better.
The bad thing is that Senderos has been sent off twice in a two month period for the same exact thing. Not only that but there were other offenses where he could have been sent off or conceeded a penalty that the referee simply missed. All in the past sixty days, gentlemen. Senderos does something wrong once, shame on him. Senderos does something wrong twice, shame on Wenger.
What’s really bad is that Wenger defends Senderos by saying he didn’t mean to foul Yakubu. Since when does that matter? A foul’s a foul. Let that grown man learn from his mistakes and man up so he can improve. He’s smart enough to know better. I didn’t like Wenger’s decision to say that.
I also didn’t like Wenger’s decision to play Gilberto at CB and Flamini at DM when Djourou was available. Who’s the better CB; Djourou or Gilberto? Who’s the better DM; Flamini or Gilberto? Can someone make sense of that one for me? Yakubu and Viduka both exposed Gilberto and it could have cost us all three points.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Djourou’s hamstring was likely not 100%, even though he was on the bench and available?
February 6th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
My take Joshuad on the manager’s decision in the Boro match to not play Djourou is- I think fans of sports, incl. myself, overanlayze every single minutae of a team, players, coaches, etc. to death. Why do things have to make sense? He didn’t do it, b/c he didn’t do it. Maybe he didn’t want to risk further injury to Djourou, maybe it was b/c he prefers mayonaise. Who knows?
February 6th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Big Phil is much better than alot of you all are giving credit for.. many games he has been immense in the center… stopping crosses left and right… there is a reason Switz.. got as far as they did in the WC and a good part was Phil.. to compare him to Igor or Pascal is ridiculous…
February 6th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
To put it bluntly, arguing the worth of Senderos using the Boro games as the fulcrum for the argument is MUTE!
Senderos didn’t play long enough in it and his booking was predicated on a “DIVE” or cheating. Otherwise he played a great game depending on which angle of the field you watched it from, Rileys obviously wasn’t so good.
Anyway, Riley has caused Arsenal nothing but grief with his lousy calls! Rooney’s flop when they took Arsenal down one short of 50. The guy is an a55 and a bad ref. He hands out more bad “red cards” than a whore handing out business salutations.
IT WASN’T A SENDEROS THING, LEAVE HIM OUT OF IT.
It’s a mikey thing…. it’s was a Mickey Mouse thing.
Riley lives in a world of make believe.
*** note to self - sell him a painting :)~
February 6th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Sorry Andez. I meant to put this in the body of my post. I enjoyed this thread. I appreciated your defense of him. I like Senderos even if at times he seems like a lummox.
OT: I hope Gallas comes back soon.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Gallas can’t come back soon enough for me. He’s played so few games for Arsenal but he does have a football brain on a good set of legs. Not soon enough.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:32 am
The best referees are those we rarely heard of.
Let’s face it, when a referee had a great game, he wouldn’t have made the headline. The only occassion when a ref made the headline was a high-profile mistake being made, or a so-called controvsey decision made by the man in black. The more lousy decisions being made, the more we would see the ref’s name mentioned in the press.
Mike Riley is definitely among those we heard of him often.