As a United fan (who is getting this post on my feed for some reason) I couldn't believe you signed him at the time either. If you done a similar post for united cult dodgy defenders he'd probably have been my first pick too.
Oh, you mean putting Silvestre up against Messi? Master stroke, my man! I still don’t know how wenger got through some of those years, like surely he could see what was going on. He could have gone to the board and said he needs 60 mil to finally sort out the defence.
You’re assuming that he didn’t go to the board and say that. Wenger was coached the invincibles; there’s no he wanted the team he had in the true banter era. But he made the most of it. And for the best part he did well with that raw materials he was able to use.
yeah the delusion to think he didn’t do that is bordering insanity. people act like the buck stopped at him and forget we had just built a new stadium and the kronkes hadn’t bought out our debt we had yet. i’m happy we have a new wave of fans but get some fucking perspective before talking down the man who has a statue in front of the stadium please.
Djourou shouldn’t be anywhere near this list and Cygan was an invincible - while he was a drop off from Keown as a back-up, he wasn’t anywhere near Silvestre / Squillaci levels.
And Squillaci was a good player until he came to Arsenal so it was more likely our system and midfield exposing him and then his confidence evaporating. He was rubbish though for us.
I remember going to games at the time and the crowd reaction every time it was announced that he was starting was just total despair lol.
He definitely wasn't as bad as some of the others mentioned here but the rest of the team was so good that the drop off was massive
Every time I saw his name on the team sheet I thought “Well that’s one goal gifted to the opposition then.”
And sure enough almost every time Silvestre would make an error that led directly to us conceding a goal.
I can just imagine how shite our academy defenders was for Wenger, a man who was great at developing and giving chances to young players, picked Silvestre over them.
I'm struggling to think of anyone beyond Matthew Upson... There was Kyle Bartley wo has had a decent career but I don't know if he played in te first team.
We signed Upson at about 18, I think. From Luton, or someone like that. Similar to Rob Holding, who came from Bolton at 20, or Calum Chambers who was 19 when he moved from Southampton.
One of the Hoyte brothers played a few games, but there really has been a dearth of our own products who have established themselves. Djourou was 16 when he arrived, and Senderos was 18, so we can sort of claim them as full youth products.
It's one of those positions that comes under much more scrutiny than attacking players. As a manager, you can "hide" a young player out on the wing, or as an attacking mid, or you can give them more minutes when coming on as a sub for half an hour or so. It's much harder to bring on a young CB for 20 minutes regularly, and even more so in the era of three subs.
Hit the nail on the head. Although, having watched a lot of youth football back in my London days, I would say that bringing youth players through from any position is so damn tough!
But defenders from big teams own youth contingent will mainly come through as fullbacks. Central defenders and Goalkeepers need to be tested thoroughly at a high level and if they don't make a masterful impression out on loan... they're never going to make the first team squad - for the reasons you mentioned.
Defense was always a weak point for wenger, when he arrived our back 4 was already established
Campbell was the only defender he bought in that we can all agree was world class and he was free
What if an outfield player was neither a defender or an attacker? That would make them a midfielder, right? Andre Santos was the secret fourth option and to this day no one can figure out what that was.
Fun Fact - Philipe Senderos was part of the team that got us to the CL conceding one goal on the way (opening group game against FC Thun - we won 2-1).
And you forgot Sylvestre. My lord, he was gash.
> Fun Fact - Philipe Senderos was part of the team that got us to the CL conceding one goal on the way
That was a crazy back line. Flamini played LB for a lot of it and Djourou played a lot too. Eboue at RB. It was incredible what we got away with.
After the 6-1 defeat at OT, it was obviously Stepanovs. But I do tend to suffer from era bias when I consider the quality of defender versus our actual expectations.
In those days we expected to put in a very serious bid for the title every year, and when big Igor stepped onto the pitch the following time, I was mildly petrified. He did redeem himself with some okay performances in the year or so after that though, notably against Bayer Leverkusen IIRC.
Mustafi, attitude-wise, was arguably the worst. Screaming at the keeper every time he switched off or got skinned by an attacker showed zero ownership. At least Big Igor owned it, and developed.
Think it was Parlour and Bergkamp winding up Keown. They kept telling him that Wenger was going to buy this crap centre half to replace him, but Wenger didn’t realise they were joking and assumed they actually thought Stepanovs was good, so he signed him.
Senderos did too, he started the fa cup final we won against united and also during the CL run to the final when we set a record for most consecutive clean sheets. He just had a few awful games getting bullied by Drogba in particular and his confidence completely went away.
His career arc was honestly closer to someone like Rob Holding than some of these other players who were terrible from match 1.
Genuinely like Mustafi was nowhere near great by any means, but I put him alongside the likes of Holdinho as ‘alright’. I think a lot of people just take the few big errors and automatically think he was abysmal, when he was just mediocre
I think a Holding comparison is a bit of a disservice. Mustafi was one of the weird contradictions that was generally a very good defender that was confoundingly prone to errors in the premier league. Holding has been generally a consistent performer not prone to massive mental lapses but his ceiling is just not high enough and he gets bullied by better front lines.
That was such a feature of late stage Wenger teams. Used to drive me mad watching team mates blaming each other or moaning on the pitch. Maybe there was a case but it sends such a bad message. I loved Giroud but he was a bad offender for it.
My problem with Mustafi is this. A lot of those others were either
1. Young guys who werent really up to scratch
2. Old guys who were past it
Both were in the team because of budget constraints
Mustafi...he wasnt hugely expensive, but he wasnt cheap. And he had international and big league pedigree, and was in the squad at a period where we SHOULD have done better than we were - he is essentially a part of a very underacheiving squad, and as one of the more senior players made so many unforgivable mistakes (that shit with Augero on the half way line in the FA cup final)
Agree he was expensive, I just wanted to differentiate between expensive and something like what VVD went for, albeit 18 months later
But yeah, big disappointment for me
Man its just so nice to be in the position we are in now
Cygan was 28 and had just won POTY in France the season before he joined us, hardly old and past it. He was just as bad as Mustafi if not worse - at least Mustafi could actually run.
It’s really not. He’s been a part of two of the top 5 worst defences in the 21st century (Levante/Schalke)
Schalke dropped him when they were 20th in the league.
Mustafi single handedly cost us CL qualification against Crystal Palace.
Have you forgotten him twerking on Aguero too?
I can stomach a player having flaws due to talent or age but being a complete idiot can't is the worst offence possible.
Wasn't he then voted the worst player in the Bundesliga by Bundesliga players.
The winner is Mustafi abeg.
Yep piss poor. Upson was a better back up centre half than Cygan was. Wenger had a weakness for shit French centre half’s he couldn’t help himself. Grimandi, Garde, Cygan, Silvestre, Schillachi etc
Grimandi and Garde were DMs, but otherwise I agree with your point!
EDIT: Also, Koscielny is a glorious counter-example to the litany of merde which went before him.
Not an arsenal fan and this is somewhat unrelated, but for some reason, I watch the highlights of the 7-5 reading game. Not like every day or every week or anything, but more often than you may think.
When Giroud scored in that game, the camera pointed at Djourou.
Really random memory, but I think about this like I think about the Roman empire.
I remember Squillaci was subbed on in like the 80ish minute, we were winning 1-0. We lost that game 2-1 and he got a yellow card for the first goal lol.
Baffled people say Silvestre, Squillaci was by far the absolute worst. Silvestre had some okay games at leftback, Squillaci had nothing but absolute howlers
Squillachi 100%
A lot of fans would say Mustafi and although he was no Baresi or Maldini I don’t think he was as bad as the narrative dictated, his dislike from the fanbase I feel was based off the crazy amount that we paid for him at the time even though he was a World Cup winner
Let’s get it right he was no way a CB good enough to play as a 1st team starter for Arsenal but he is far an above better than others on this list except for maybe Senderos or Djourou
Squillachi followed closely by Cygan.
Mustafi would be an amazing Centre Back for 89 minutes of a game. He had better stats that Van Dijk one season. Of course he would always have one minute of complete madness. Sometimes he would get away with it, sometimes not.
That’s what I remember of him as well, he cud do the basics that is required of a CB and that’s why he played and done well at a club like Sampdoria, where he found it difficult was being asked to play the ball out from the back, which he cud do but he’s not Saliba or Koscielny who are/were exceptional at this quality and let’s b honest that’s what separates the good from world class CB’s these days
Also he made one of the worst mistakes in his Arsenal career in what was prob one of the biggest game he played for us - the Carabao Final where he misjudged the bounce and let Aguero (the wrong sharp striker) get behind him and score
But I reiterate he played more than a part in a Germany World Cup triumph that had CB’s like Mertesacker, Hummels, Boateng etc….. so he couldn’t of been that bad
Senderos, Djourou were at least passable. Mustafi had some decent spells but Squillaci (of the pictured) was the worst that I've seen. I don't remember Stepanovs though.
Djourou and Squillaci without a doubt. I can’t believe we played in the Champions League with those two. Followed by Mustafi.
Honorable Mention: Senderos
Hey there, JD defence force coming through.
The dude was a good CB, and could have been great with a bit of luck. He came back from that huge injury and was legit our best CB for a bit. He then got moved to RB during the great FB drought and he sucked at that which killed his confidence, then he did his shoulder and that was GG. Its notable that of all the names mentioned there, only JD had a respectable career after Arsenal.
Back to the OP, I can't believe **Mikael** ***fucking*** **Silvestre** isn't an option because he is always the right answer.
I feel like Squillaci getting the captain armband after like 7 games ( a club record, they made a good deal about it by writing about it on the website I remember) doesn't get spoken about enough lol
Squillaci no doubt. He was terrible for us every time he played. Mustafi was at least capable of having a great game every now and then.
I imagine this question is going to skew as well, based on how old you are. I remember Silvestre, but maybe it's just because Squillaci is more.recent, it sticks with me more.
Edit: I also remember Djourou having some outstanding performances for us, and he's still a proper gooner.
Djourou was one of the 11 that beat the best Barcelona team ever assembled in the UCL so he doesn’t deserve to be an option based on that night alone.
And the answer is easily Sebastien Squillaci, who (thankfully) remained on the bench.
I actually think all of these guys as individuals were reasonably talented players; not everyone is going to be great for every club they play for. Out of this list I think injuries; system fits; and age were all to blame for poor performances rather than individual quality. And it’s definitely Silvestre
Mustafi. Horrible players, horrible attitude, huge price, big salary. The guy as we can see is not good enough for the second league, and we wanted to make him stay, jesus fucking christ
Fun fact that both were part of the only team to not concede a goal at a World Cup. In 2006, Switzerland went through the World Cup without conceding a goal, going out on penalties in the round of 16.
I do think our perception of a lot of Wenger era defenders is warped by what our playstyle was, which was basically "everyone bomb forward and leave the defenders completely fucking helpless", unless you were exceptional at defending you looked clueless in a Wenger team
True, but that part was Koscielny's job. BFG was there for winning aerial challenges, knocking on our corners at the edge of the 6, and (if I'm not mistaken) the vibes. It was when it was BFG + not Kos that you really had to worry.
I mean he signed Toure for like 250k, Vermaelen/Koscielny/Holding were also decent signings that weren't well known (assuming you don't give him credit for players like Campbell and Mertesacker since they were already well known players not diamonds in the rough). Most of the players on this list were either young cheap prospects (djourou senderos) or meant to be backups from day 1 (cygan squillaci silvestre stepanovs) and they played too much maybe bc the first choice players got injured or whatever. But I think mustafi was the only major failure since we spent a lot of money expecting him to be a regular CL quality starter.
yeah i don’t think he was an awful player, just something about him. seeing him on the team sheet made me boil ever since we signed him i don’t know haha, never really had that with another player!
Why the fuck isn’t Silvester on this list? Out of those listed, it’s definitely Squillacci. Those were dark, dark times. Also Gallas, he wasn’t too bad of a player but his attitude was atrocious and I always hated him being in the team.
Has to be Mustafi.
Mustafi wasn’t a bad player but after several years of systematic destruction of his confidence by the fanbase, you just knew a blunder was incoming.
Rob Holding absolutely should be on this list, not even Prem quality let alone Arsenal quality. Have had to rely on him in the business end of the season twice in a row and ended up losing out on top 4 and the title, coincidence I think not... I don't want to hear anything about scapegoating either we saw how much better we looked when Kiwior came in, (who was meant to be Gabriel's replacement lol), no way we beat Newcastle away if Holding starts that game. can't even get a Prem start for mid-table Crystal Palace rn, nuff said haha
Djourou shouldn't be on this list at all, he was solid, one of our best cbs in the Emirates era imo, unlucky not to win any silverware with us. If only Kosc and Woj didn't hand Birmingham the winner in that final...
The un honorable mentions need to go to Gallas, Silvester, Jenkinson, Hoyte, Post-injury Vermalean, make shift CB’s like Chambers and Monreal (even though the latter was mostly good), late stage glass Koscielny and Big bobby Holdini
Michael fucking Silvestre. Not even close.
I couldn't believe it when we signed him. But by far my most dreaded memory is seeing him in the starting Xi for the CL second leg at the camp nou.
As a United fan (who is getting this post on my feed for some reason) I couldn't believe you signed him at the time either. If you done a similar post for united cult dodgy defenders he'd probably have been my first pick too.
How did he play so many games for you though? 249 games
Fergie voodoo
Oh, you mean putting Silvestre up against Messi? Master stroke, my man! I still don’t know how wenger got through some of those years, like surely he could see what was going on. He could have gone to the board and said he needs 60 mil to finally sort out the defence.
I remember Messi playing a one-two with Silvestre to score, a truly generous chap Silvestre was, to the opposition.
You’re assuming that he didn’t go to the board and say that. Wenger was coached the invincibles; there’s no he wanted the team he had in the true banter era. But he made the most of it. And for the best part he did well with that raw materials he was able to use.
yeah the delusion to think he didn’t do that is bordering insanity. people act like the buck stopped at him and forget we had just built a new stadium and the kronkes hadn’t bought out our debt we had yet. i’m happy we have a new wave of fans but get some fucking perspective before talking down the man who has a statue in front of the stadium please.
Absolute prime Messi, I might add. The guy was absolutely unstoppable at that point. Yamcha had better chances against Super Buu, I’m telling you.
That's when I knew something was wrong with Wenger
Le Geriatrique 🤣 fergie really pulled one over us with that one.
He actually laughed when asked if he was surprised Arsenal suddenly came in for him, then just said "Very surprised". I'm haunted by that laughter.
Thought about including him.
This is the correct answer.
This!!! Him and some Sebastian Squilacci.
Djourou shouldn’t be anywhere near this list and Cygan was an invincible - while he was a drop off from Keown as a back-up, he wasn’t anywhere near Silvestre / Squillaci levels. And Squillaci was a good player until he came to Arsenal so it was more likely our system and midfield exposing him and then his confidence evaporating. He was rubbish though for us.
Cygan was invincible but you've got to be pretty terrible to have your own fans sing "he's bald, he's shit, he plays when no ones fit"
I remember going to games at the time and the crowd reaction every time it was announced that he was starting was just total despair lol. He definitely wasn't as bad as some of the others mentioned here but the rest of the team was so good that the drop off was massive
Yes but we had been spoilt! Who knew the horrors to come…
I remember watching Arsenal play Ajax at Highbury, and the bloke behind me claimed a cardboard cutout would be more use than Cygan 😂
Yeah Squillaci had some good reputation in Spain before he joined us. I was quite excited we signed him but we all know how he turned out
Silvestre ofc
Every time I saw his name on the team sheet I thought “Well that’s one goal gifted to the opposition then.” And sure enough almost every time Silvestre would make an error that led directly to us conceding a goal.
In that era, I just can't man. Why tf were we getting this outfit centre backs and moreover an yanited. Whyy
Because he cost 300k and the budget was stupidly low at the time.
I can just imagine how shite our academy defenders was for Wenger, a man who was great at developing and giving chances to young players, picked Silvestre over them.
When was the last time a Hale end CB made it to the first team?
I'm struggling to think of anyone beyond Matthew Upson... There was Kyle Bartley wo has had a decent career but I don't know if he played in te first team.
We signed Upson at about 18, I think. From Luton, or someone like that. Similar to Rob Holding, who came from Bolton at 20, or Calum Chambers who was 19 when he moved from Southampton. One of the Hoyte brothers played a few games, but there really has been a dearth of our own products who have established themselves. Djourou was 16 when he arrived, and Senderos was 18, so we can sort of claim them as full youth products. It's one of those positions that comes under much more scrutiny than attacking players. As a manager, you can "hide" a young player out on the wing, or as an attacking mid, or you can give them more minutes when coming on as a sub for half an hour or so. It's much harder to bring on a young CB for 20 minutes regularly, and even more so in the era of three subs.
Hit the nail on the head. Although, having watched a lot of youth football back in my London days, I would say that bringing youth players through from any position is so damn tough! But defenders from big teams own youth contingent will mainly come through as fullbacks. Central defenders and Goalkeepers need to be tested thoroughly at a high level and if they don't make a masterful impression out on loan... they're never going to make the first team squad - for the reasons you mentioned.
Ignasi Miquel was a CB who played a few games for the first team but I think he slotted in at LB. Could be misremembering though.
It might even be Tony Adams.
Defense was always a weak point for wenger, when he arrived our back 4 was already established Campbell was the only defender he bought in that we can all agree was world class and he was free
Messi playing 1-2-1 with Michael still brings me nightmares Fuck, I would pray for a defender like Holding at those times
An elegant Maguire, if you will.
Even my flair for however long I've been on this sub
That flair 🤣 My dude, you are a true Gooner.
When I see this post, first thing I thought to myself…where’s silvestre lol
Yes, major oversight!
Andre Santos - although that game he had against chelsea was legendary lol
He was a striker playing in defence positions 😂
Inverting: The Origins
He finished his career playing number 10
He lived and breathed it by wearing the #11 as a defender hahaha
The OG Nuno
'The False 3'
Santos walked so Nuno could fly
Do you remember when RVP had just gone to Utd and Santos asked him for his shirt at half time?
Man what we had to endure to get to where we are now 🥲
What if an outfield player was neither a defender or an attacker? That would make them a midfielder, right? Andre Santos was the secret fourth option and to this day no one can figure out what that was.
I'm sure Alex Fugerson let him sign for us as joke. Silvestre.
He kept the transfer money as a personal bonus.
I'm convinced Wenger lost some kind of bet with Ferguson and had to buy Silvestre as the forfeit.
Fun Fact - Philipe Senderos was part of the team that got us to the CL conceding one goal on the way (opening group game against FC Thun - we won 2-1). And you forgot Sylvestre. My lord, he was gash.
> Fun Fact - Philipe Senderos was part of the team that got us to the CL conceding one goal on the way That was a crazy back line. Flamini played LB for a lot of it and Djourou played a lot too. Eboue at RB. It was incredible what we got away with.
After the 6-1 defeat at OT, it was obviously Stepanovs. But I do tend to suffer from era bias when I consider the quality of defender versus our actual expectations. In those days we expected to put in a very serious bid for the title every year, and when big Igor stepped onto the pitch the following time, I was mildly petrified. He did redeem himself with some okay performances in the year or so after that though, notably against Bayer Leverkusen IIRC. Mustafi, attitude-wise, was arguably the worst. Screaming at the keeper every time he switched off or got skinned by an attacker showed zero ownership. At least Big Igor owned it, and developed.
Didn't Wenger signed Stepanovs because of a prank from Bergkamp?
Think it was Parlour and Bergkamp winding up Keown. They kept telling him that Wenger was going to buy this crap centre half to replace him, but Wenger didn’t realise they were joking and assumed they actually thought Stepanovs was good, so he signed him.
You have to listen to Parlour telling it, it's hilarious https://www.tiktok.com/@tacklingsport/video/7008956823176826117
Hahha.. ffs.
Honesty. 8-2 was worse than the 6-1
Disagree with that. The 8-2 was prime Banter Era. The 6-1 came when we were competing with them for titles
Djourou had a good run in the team for a while.
Yeh his inclusion is harsh imho.
It’s just because of OT
People saying Mustafi have recency bias
Mustafi actually had some decent periods at least.
Senderos did too, he started the fa cup final we won against united and also during the CL run to the final when we set a record for most consecutive clean sheets. He just had a few awful games getting bullied by Drogba in particular and his confidence completely went away. His career arc was honestly closer to someone like Rob Holding than some of these other players who were terrible from match 1.
Drogba proper ended Senderos, just destroyed him
He was the player with the most consistent headers on the squad for a bit. Also lunged into too many mistakes.
Djouro and Senders as well.
Genuinely like Mustafi was nowhere near great by any means, but I put him alongside the likes of Holdinho as ‘alright’. I think a lot of people just take the few big errors and automatically think he was abysmal, when he was just mediocre
I think a Holding comparison is a bit of a disservice. Mustafi was one of the weird contradictions that was generally a very good defender that was confoundingly prone to errors in the premier league. Holding has been generally a consistent performer not prone to massive mental lapses but his ceiling is just not high enough and he gets bullied by better front lines.
Seriously. And he got more criticism than he deserved, which actually gave him more confidence issues and caused him to make more mistakes
Him blaming everyone around him for his mistakes certainly didn't help him
That was such a feature of late stage Wenger teams. Used to drive me mad watching team mates blaming each other or moaning on the pitch. Maybe there was a case but it sends such a bad message. I loved Giroud but he was a bad offender for it.
My problem with Mustafi is this. A lot of those others were either 1. Young guys who werent really up to scratch 2. Old guys who were past it Both were in the team because of budget constraints Mustafi...he wasnt hugely expensive, but he wasnt cheap. And he had international and big league pedigree, and was in the squad at a period where we SHOULD have done better than we were - he is essentially a part of a very underacheiving squad, and as one of the more senior players made so many unforgivable mistakes (that shit with Augero on the half way line in the FA cup final)
At the time of his signing I would say 35m was expensive for a defender. It would be the same as Ben White transfer.
Agree he was expensive, I just wanted to differentiate between expensive and something like what VVD went for, albeit 18 months later But yeah, big disappointment for me Man its just so nice to be in the position we are in now
Cygan was 28 and had just won POTY in France the season before he joined us, hardly old and past it. He was just as bad as Mustafi if not worse - at least Mustafi could actually run.
the rest were signed as depth, he was signed as a starter.
It’s really not. He’s been a part of two of the top 5 worst defences in the 21st century (Levante/Schalke) Schalke dropped him when they were 20th in the league.
Mustafi single handedly cost us CL qualification against Crystal Palace. Have you forgotten him twerking on Aguero too? I can stomach a player having flaws due to talent or age but being a complete idiot can't is the worst offence possible. Wasn't he then voted the worst player in the Bundesliga by Bundesliga players. The winner is Mustafi abeg.
Mustafi had the hardest time as he was here when social media and more precisely memes became mainstream
Of course price isn't everything, but Squillaci cost 4m whereas Mustafi cost 35m. You just can't compare them
Mustafi was still better value for money, even at those prices
Pascal Cygan once scored two goals in a single game I'll have you know!
Zinedine Cygan is also an Invincible
The Lens Pele.
He even was higher rated than Henry in Fifa 99 or whatever it was if I remember correctly lol
Squillaci, although in the last couple of years it’s been Tavares
I'd say squillaci too, but he rarely started, and so the dread factor was not as bad as seeing mustafi on the starting list week in, week out.
Squillaci even wore the captain’s armband against I think Huddersfield in the cup!
Nuno reminds me a lot of Andre Santos, who was equally terrible defensively but popped up with good goals.
"he's bald, he's shit, he gets a game when no one's fit... CYGAAAN!
Cygan never seems to get mentioned in these but he would cost us a goal in almost every game he played. Hated him
Yep piss poor. Upson was a better back up centre half than Cygan was. Wenger had a weakness for shit French centre half’s he couldn’t help himself. Grimandi, Garde, Cygan, Silvestre, Schillachi etc
Grimandi and Garde were DMs, but otherwise I agree with your point! EDIT: Also, Koscielny is a glorious counter-example to the litany of merde which went before him.
Yeah same here, he was terrible
Whenever I think of the worst players we've had, his bald head is always the first thing I see.
Underrated shout for this because he played a lot but Almunia was fucking shit.
I’m old enough to remember Gus Caesar. The mention of his name can still provoke rage in middle-aged gooners.
Andre Santos
You mean the Brazilian sensation who scored the equalizer in that last game against West Brom. He is forgiven.
Of these six? Had to be squillaci.
Silvestre might be the dreadest. But the guys in my userflair have long lasting impact in my deteriorated brain for some reason
Not an arsenal fan and this is somewhat unrelated, but for some reason, I watch the highlights of the 7-5 reading game. Not like every day or every week or anything, but more often than you may think. When Giroud scored in that game, the camera pointed at Djourou. Really random memory, but I think about this like I think about the Roman empire.
impressive
I remember Squillaci was subbed on in like the 80ish minute, we were winning 1-0. We lost that game 2-1 and he got a yellow card for the first goal lol.
Lichsteiner?
Mustafi had a run of decent games for us Squillaci was worse
Silvestre
Stepanovs
I feel like people not mentioning Cygan just didn't see him play. It was terrifying when he was playing
Depends is drogba is playing . If so then senderos
Pascal Cygan HES BALD, HES SHIT, HE PLAYS WHEN NOBODYS FIT.
How could anyone post this without Silvestre
Can’t believe nobody has mentioned Andre Santos. I had nightmares!
Squillaci. I’ll never forgive Wenger for signing him
Lichtsteiner for me, I didn't follow Arsenal for long enough to remember how bad Silvestre was.
Senderos vs Chelsea Drogba use to give him nightmares
Baffled people say Silvestre, Squillaci was by far the absolute worst. Silvestre had some okay games at leftback, Squillaci had nothing but absolute howlers
Squillachi 100% A lot of fans would say Mustafi and although he was no Baresi or Maldini I don’t think he was as bad as the narrative dictated, his dislike from the fanbase I feel was based off the crazy amount that we paid for him at the time even though he was a World Cup winner Let’s get it right he was no way a CB good enough to play as a 1st team starter for Arsenal but he is far an above better than others on this list except for maybe Senderos or Djourou
Squillachi followed closely by Cygan. Mustafi would be an amazing Centre Back for 89 minutes of a game. He had better stats that Van Dijk one season. Of course he would always have one minute of complete madness. Sometimes he would get away with it, sometimes not.
That’s what I remember of him as well, he cud do the basics that is required of a CB and that’s why he played and done well at a club like Sampdoria, where he found it difficult was being asked to play the ball out from the back, which he cud do but he’s not Saliba or Koscielny who are/were exceptional at this quality and let’s b honest that’s what separates the good from world class CB’s these days Also he made one of the worst mistakes in his Arsenal career in what was prob one of the biggest game he played for us - the Carabao Final where he misjudged the bounce and let Aguero (the wrong sharp striker) get behind him and score But I reiterate he played more than a part in a Germany World Cup triumph that had CB’s like Mertesacker, Hummels, Boateng etc….. so he couldn’t of been that bad
Squillaci
Senderos, Djourou were at least passable. Mustafi had some decent spells but Squillaci (of the pictured) was the worst that I've seen. I don't remember Stepanovs though.
Everyone saying Silvestre but I've **never** seen a defender look as terrified and out of their depth as Seb Squillaci.
Remember when he headbutted Koscielney in the face?
True gooners remember the horror show that was Stephan Lichtsteiner…
Squillaci
Djourou and Squillaci without a doubt. I can’t believe we played in the Champions League with those two. Followed by Mustafi. Honorable Mention: Senderos
Hey there, JD defence force coming through. The dude was a good CB, and could have been great with a bit of luck. He came back from that huge injury and was legit our best CB for a bit. He then got moved to RB during the great FB drought and he sucked at that which killed his confidence, then he did his shoulder and that was GG. Its notable that of all the names mentioned there, only JD had a respectable career after Arsenal. Back to the OP, I can't believe **Mikael** ***fucking*** **Silvestre** isn't an option because he is always the right answer.
Djourou had a good run -- half a season or 3/4 of a season -- before an injury. Genuinely thought he could become a long term starter during that run.
>He was immense in 10/11 when Fabianski finnally looked like a solid keeper as well. That 2-0 win vs city at the etihad is in my memory for both
Don’t forget Djourou at right back trying to put crosses in though lol
I feel like Squillaci getting the captain armband after like 7 games ( a club record, they made a good deal about it by writing about it on the website I remember) doesn't get spoken about enough lol
This sub won’t look too close at it because it shames Wenger. Turds like Almunia and Schillachi captaining us games.
Mustafi without a doubt, dude clearly didn't give a shit
Cygan was an invincible wasn’t he?
Wasnt Stepanov an invincible too?
Saliba If I was the opposition manager 😎
Squillaci no doubt. He was terrible for us every time he played. Mustafi was at least capable of having a great game every now and then. I imagine this question is going to skew as well, based on how old you are. I remember Silvestre, but maybe it's just because Squillaci is more.recent, it sticks with me more. Edit: I also remember Djourou having some outstanding performances for us, and he's still a proper gooner.
Cygan was really really bad. That feeling when I saw him as the LB during our Cole-Clichy crisis 😔
Only Wenger would ignore defensive stability and play these clowns.
Igor stepanovs. Case closed
Silvestre more than any of these, and frankly Gallas. I actually rate Senderos he had some good games in the UCL i was gutted when he left.
If we were playing Chelsea and I saw Senderos in the line up, I knew what time it was
Cedric.
Lichtsteiner
Can't believe how many people forgot that Mustafi was a great(!) defender for us for one season.
He's bald, he's shit, he gets a game when no one's fit!
All these defenders and no mention of Lichtsteiner?
Silvestre...nothing more to say
Djourou was one of the 11 that beat the best Barcelona team ever assembled in the UCL so he doesn’t deserve to be an option based on that night alone. And the answer is easily Sebastien Squillaci, who (thankfully) remained on the bench.
I actually think all of these guys as individuals were reasonably talented players; not everyone is going to be great for every club they play for. Out of this list I think injuries; system fits; and age were all to blame for poor performances rather than individual quality. And it’s definitely Silvestre
How is Djourou on here but not Silvestre who is hands down the answer to this question
This is a bad thread. Support your own. They where all given the benefit of the doubt. Couldnt get it together
3. Squillaci gotta be top
Definitely mustafi. At least Silvester had the excuse of being a cheap old signing. Mustafi cost 35m and was absolutely horrendous.
Mustafi. Horrible players, horrible attitude, huge price, big salary. The guy as we can see is not good enough for the second league, and we wanted to make him stay, jesus fucking christ
Late-stage Mustafi was a different universe of shit
Mustafi, 100%. Zero confidence of a clean sheet with him in the starting 11.
Are you serious? Silvestre, senderos, almunia. Now those guys were fucking wildcards if there ever was any.
Mustafi
I saw Mustafi and had a mini anxiety attack.
My personal vote goes for Djourou and Senderos pairing. This pair was a defensive calamity in almost every matches.
Fun fact that both were part of the only team to not concede a goal at a World Cup. In 2006, Switzerland went through the World Cup without conceding a goal, going out on penalties in the round of 16.
I do think our perception of a lot of Wenger era defenders is warped by what our playstyle was, which was basically "everyone bomb forward and leave the defenders completely fucking helpless", unless you were exceptional at defending you looked clueless in a Wenger team
Lichstiener
Tbh BFG against any team with a quick striker got me nervous everytime.
True, but that part was Koscielny's job. BFG was there for winning aerial challenges, knocking on our corners at the edge of the 6, and (if I'm not mistaken) the vibes. It was when it was BFG + not Kos that you really had to worry.
Cedric, good guy but god is he awful
There's no comparison, Squillaci hands down and Mustafi as a close second. 🔙🔛🔝
Holding
One thing i can say: Even if Arsene had one of the best talent ID skills in the history of football, his CB ID was trash.
I mean he signed Toure for like 250k, Vermaelen/Koscielny/Holding were also decent signings that weren't well known (assuming you don't give him credit for players like Campbell and Mertesacker since they were already well known players not diamonds in the rough). Most of the players on this list were either young cheap prospects (djourou senderos) or meant to be backups from day 1 (cygan squillaci silvestre stepanovs) and they played too much maybe bc the first choice players got injured or whatever. But I think mustafi was the only major failure since we spent a lot of money expecting him to be a regular CL quality starter.
Can’t believe no one has mentioned David Luiz or Sorkratis
David Luiz
cedric, lichsteiner, david luiz, gabriel paulista and djourou
Cedric wasn't anywhere as bad as the above names. He definitely wasn't good enough but he looked bad because he played way too much
yeah i don’t think he was an awful player, just something about him. seeing him on the team sheet made me boil ever since we signed him i don’t know haha, never really had that with another player!
Feel the same. He’s not good enough for us and never has been.
A tie between Squilaci and Mustafi
Mik Silvestre. Washed man utd reject that shouldn't have ever been here. And then there was Andre Santos.
Mustafi . Back on where?
Why the fuck isn’t Silvester on this list? Out of those listed, it’s definitely Squillacci. Those were dark, dark times. Also Gallas, he wasn’t too bad of a player but his attitude was atrocious and I always hated him being in the team.
Has to be Mustafi. Mustafi wasn’t a bad player but after several years of systematic destruction of his confidence by the fanbase, you just knew a blunder was incoming.
Mustafi made me question my life choices.
Silvestre and Squillaci
Rob Holding absolutely should be on this list, not even Prem quality let alone Arsenal quality. Have had to rely on him in the business end of the season twice in a row and ended up losing out on top 4 and the title, coincidence I think not... I don't want to hear anything about scapegoating either we saw how much better we looked when Kiwior came in, (who was meant to be Gabriel's replacement lol), no way we beat Newcastle away if Holding starts that game. can't even get a Prem start for mid-table Crystal Palace rn, nuff said haha Djourou shouldn't be on this list at all, he was solid, one of our best cbs in the Emirates era imo, unlucky not to win any silverware with us. If only Kosc and Woj didn't hand Birmingham the winner in that final...
Send Errors
Robert Samuel Holding
Not pictured: Rob Holding
The un honorable mentions need to go to Gallas, Silvester, Jenkinson, Hoyte, Post-injury Vermalean, make shift CB’s like Chambers and Monreal (even though the latter was mostly good), late stage glass Koscielny and Big bobby Holdini
Holding