by Lewis Ambrose
Former Liverpool and Manchester City man has praised Francis Coquelin in a talkSPORT interview littered with poor generalisations about Arsenal.
“They’ve never really filled the void left by Alex Song,” Hamann didn’t get off to a good start as he tried to make his point. Saying Arsenal haven’t had a great defensive midfielder since Gilberto Silva would be fair, but Mikel Arteta was far superior to Alex Song. The Cameroonian would frequently get caught out of position during his last two years at Arsenal and a replacement hasn’t been needed.
Hamann did, however, go on to credit Francis Coquelin and his form last season.
“In Coquelin, a player appeared last year who’s done ever so well.
“He made a huge difference to them, results improved dramatically [when he came into the side], and he gave them that protection in front of the back four.
“He had a massive influence and if he can repeat what he did last season I think they are set fair.”
Results certainly did improve. Arsenal played a much tighter system and reincorporated Laurent Koscielny and Mesut Özil; the correlation between results and selection doesn’t only involve Coquelin but is often used to overstate how he improved the team. Nonetheless a culmination of those things did see Arsenal picking up better results as the season went on.
Goals
“With the likes of [Aaron] Ramsey and [Jack] Wilshere going forward they’ve got so much quality and you know they are always going to score goals, so defensively was always the problem with Arsenal,” Hamann said.
Was it? We know that people tell us that is the case but the 2013/14 season saw Arsenal concede just four goals more than eventual champions Manchester City, while scoring 34 goals fewer. Everyone loves this idea that Arsenal can’t defend and haven’t been able to for years but it doesn’t actually hold up with the evidence.
Arsenal have needed to improve offensively, that’s gone under the radar for quite some time but now we are finally getting to where we need to be again.
“I expect them to be fewer than five or six points off the Premier League winners, and I think they’ve got a fighting chance to win it.”
I think it’s pretty clear by now that I don’t think Hamann is a good pundit but instead spouts generalisations with little insight having not watched the team in question regularly. That’s certainly how it comes across.