Arsenal’s defense has been the butt of many jokes recent months. The 2011-12 Gunners have conceded 16 goals in their first seven English Premier League games and the Daily Mirror reports that defender Per Mertesacker believes unfamiliarity is the issue behind the team’s leaky defense.
In an interview on the German Football Association’s website, the 27-year-old stopper said “We have many new players, but I feel that we have integrated very quickly. I still have communication problems, but given the circumstances this is inevitable.”
“Arsenal is one of the top teams in the world and the level of the league in general is very high. But it is clear that mistakes happen. They are almost inevitable in a team which has not yet gelled.”
Manager Arsene Wenger has reinvented his under-achieving team over the last 15 months. Six of his first-choice players were not Arsenal regulars at the end of the 2009-10 season and the growing pains of the new Arsenal have been broadcast to a worldwide audience. The Gunners are in 15th place in the EPL and face the all-too-realistic prospect of missing out on Champions League qualification next season.
The outlook for defensive improvement took a major blow Sunday, as right back Bacary Sagna broke his ankle while playing against Tottenham Hotspur.
Thomas Vermaelen andLaurent Koscielny are injured and holding midfielder Alex Song has deputized at central defender next to Mertesacker. When Koscielny returns, he should partner with the dependable German, as the club patiently awaits Vermaelen’s recovery from an Achilles problem.
In Wenger’s ideal world, he would be able to select the same back four for the next four games ahead of Arsenal’s Oct. 29 trip to Chelsea, but that looks impossible. Things seem to go bad to worse for the Gunners on the defensive front, and supporters must be fretting the inevitable next peice of bad injury news.
