aleksandr Hleb

[Thomo]

what do u guys think of him? is he worth the 10 million? is he a good enough signing for arsenal. i dnt know enough of him, only wat ive seen in the champions league.

[jorge]

Is it definite?

[Risteard]

Course he is.
What . . . with all those Irish caps and everything.

[jimbob117]

Is it definite?

Yes,its confirmed and looks to me like hes a decent player who'll fit into arsenals style of football no problems

[Frank Blue]

Yes,its confirmed and looks to me like hes a decent player who'll fit into arsenals style of football no problems

He is a decent player, but he's not what Arsenal needs. Wenger's priority should be a traditional forward, battering ram type, not another tricky player. This is why they have failed in Europe. Arsenal plays very nice football, but without the end product.
VfB will miss him for sure, but at least they got a decent amount for him.

[tetsujin1979]

This is why they have failed in Europe. Arsenal plays very nice football, but without the end product.

This is usually what happens when Arsenal play in Europe, about 20-odd passes between the back 4 and probably about 2-3 of the midfielders, while the Arsenal team push forward, the opposing midfielders take the ball, catch Arsenal on the break and score. The top English sides don't have to work to get the ball back off the opposition they face week in/week out whereas in Europe, against a higher class of ball player, and much better ball retention they find it much harder to break the opposition down and create chances.

[Arsene About]

I agree with Frank Blue. What arsenal need is somebody who get head the ball! so few of our goals come from headers, although its not our style of play to get in crosses. If a team is struggling to break down a packed defence, im still a great fan of a target man/plan b. Still looking for the "fox in the box"!! Whatever happened francis jeffers?!!

[jimbob117]

He is a decent player, but he's not what Arsenal needs. Wenger's priority should be a traditional forward, battering ram type, not another tricky player. This is why they have failed in Europe. Arsenal plays very nice football, but without the end product.

Yes they do need an out and out striker to finish but with pires, ljungberg and reyes linked with moves away(and i reckon 1 of them will go) and van persie in possible trouble,hleb IS the kind of player they need to replace one of them.

[Karlos]

Yes they do need an out and out striker to finish but with pires, ljungberg and reyes linked with moves away(and i reckon 1 of them will go) and van persie in possible trouble,hleb IS the kind of player they need to replace one of them.

While I agree to some extent that a new stiker is required it's ironic to be talking about someone who can finish when Henry get's 30+ goals a season and is in the top 5 all time european cup golascorers chart I would however like to see a more direct player play along side him, doesn't necessarily have to be a goal scorer but a good strong second stiker.

I don't believe Hleb has been bought to replace any of the players you mentioned. It's likely he will play in one of 3 positions -

1. in centre midfield, thus taking Edu's squad place,

2. in right midfield replacing Fabregas' need to play there allowing Cesc to move back into Edu's midfield spot

3. as the deep lying striker in place of Bergkamp away from home in Europe or in place of Van Persie should be visiting one of Holland's finest prisions.

There's plently of options with Hleb and that's why he's been signed by Wenger. It's exactly what Arsenal need at the moment.

[tetsujin1979]

While I agree to some extent that a new stiker is required it's ironic to be talking about someone who can finish when Henry get's 30+ goals a season and is in the top 5 all time european cup golascorers chart I would however like to see a more direct player play along side him, doesn't necessarily have to be a goal scorer but a good strong second stiker.

What happens when Henry's is injured (like towards the end of last season) or picks up a suspension?? When he's on fire, Arsenal do likewise, but they don't seem to have much of a plan B, a second striker would help this.

[Karlos]

What happens when Henry's is injured (like towards the end of last season) or picks up a suspension?? When he's on fire, Arsenal do likewise, but they don't seem to have much of a plan B, a second striker would help this.

I do take your point but I don't believe that scoring goals is Arsenal's problem in Europe or otherwise. In europe it's been defensively where we have failed losing out to away goals and sloppy defending - particulary this year against Bayern and last year against Chelsea - Each time we have gone out from Europe we have managed to score in both the home and away legs.

At the end of last season in the 7 games Henry was missing from (with the exception of one half against Everton in which he didn't score), Arsenal scored 15 goals - that's an average of over 2 goals a game

Henry got 38 goals last season - Arsenal got over 100 in total - that's 60 odd goals that were not scored by Henry. Robert Pires scored more goals than any of the strikers of the top 5 teams in the premier league finishing 3rd behind Henry and Johnson.

With or without Henry, Arsenal don't have a problem scoring goals, defending them is another matter and the prelonged absences of Lehmann, Gilberto and Campbell this season added to the problem Arsenal have had in defending as a unit.

The FA Cup Final saw Wenger change his tactics to be more compact and they defended brilliantly. It wasn't pretty but it worked (to the degree that they won the game, albeit fortuitiously) - he sacrificed the attack to ensure we didn't concede.

I Expect to see a few more 'one man up front' games from Arsenal next season especially in Europe and imgine it's something they are working on now considering they sorted out the defence with the emergence Sendoros and the return of Gilberto and Lehmann.

So to cut a long story short - I don't think the signing of a Jan Koller, Peter Crouch or Dean Ashton would necessarily give Arsenal a champions league win in my opinion but it would be nice to have another option to use at times.