Seems like he's made an instant impact in the first team. It's great to hear Vermealen talking about his influence, especially about concentrating on the getting the details right. Really encouraging to hear this --------------------------------- http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/-steve-bould-is-very-focused-on-details-
But after watching pre-season so far, it doesn't look like he has an influence, we defended the same way we did last year, maybe even worse, which suggests wenger is still le boss. Whether that is poor coaching, or just a lot of rust to shake off i don't know, but so far we've regressed defensively. Hopefully Koln on sunday gives a clearer indication, now that the players are nearly back up to full fitness.
It sounds like our defence are getting some really good technical advice. Could Bould be the defensive coach that we were all asking for ?
Vermaelen spoke about how Bould is working on the shape of the team and how it's benefiting the defenders.
Definitley. AW said before that he didn't want to bring in a specific defensive coach, as he didn't want to give up any of the decision making process. Wenger is a bit of an autocrat, but that's fine as far as I'm concerned. He's still one of the best managers ever in English football and so he's entitled to be. His game has always been based on the whole team attacking and for the last few seasons, we've been punished defensively. But from Vermaelen's comments about Bould, it looks like we might have got someone who can work defensive tactics as well as be a good no2 to Le Boss.
We'll find out tomorrow if Bould is having any effect. As i said yesterday, considering how bad we were defensively on the asian tour, no effect has been apparent yet.
As opposed to his other trademark which was deliberately ending the career of opposition strikers... Steve Bould is a coward.
Could David Hirst have been better than Shearer? Yeah, definitely. In fact, he was up until he got that injury. His goals-per-game, his assists. Amazing player. Steve Bould brutally wrecked his career – that’s the truth of the matter. People talk about what a great player Steve Bould was, but he was a thug – he ruined David Hirst’s career deliberately. Went down the back of him, you know what I mean? It’s a shame what happened to Hirsty, man. He was never the same player [after that] – he put on weight and was continually dogged by the same injury, which is awful, really. Before his injury, Man U offered £5m for him – which at that time was a hell of a lot of money – but we turned it down. You wonder, if we’d have took it, and he’d not got that injury and he’d played under Ferguson, what a player Hirst would have become. So yeah, very sad.
The rumours around at the time were that George Graham instructed Bould to take him out of the game. He'd originally asked Adams but he outright refused.
Seriously?? How does breaking somoenes legs in a tackle make you a coward? It was an accident - in a contact sport. Things like this happen. The conspiracy theories are nothing more than bullshit. I would rather that a little more contact was still allowed. Otherwise football will end up being like Basketball. Bould was one of the most commited and least cowardly players I've ever seen.
Soo back on the subject at hand.. I'm betting that if Bould is having enough influence we will see Mertesacker starting games ahead of either Kos or Vermaelen. (probably Kos seeing as Vermaelen may well end up Captain) I cant see him sticking with two small centrebacks. I think we will go for a more traditional defensive setup. (a 'ballplayer' and a 'ballwinner')
