He had no hair

By Eduardo
July 2 2010

We have not signed the guy yet, but already some Arsenal blogs have been full of comments from people saying he is not good enough, not experienced enough, has no international experience, comes from an inferior league and much, much, more, and by and large these statements are accompanied by comments such as, "I have never seen him play" or, "from what I seen of him on YouTube".

Well I can only assume those making the comments are very young, or know little of  the greatest backline Arsenal ever had, Seaman, Dixon, Bould, Adams and Winterburn.

Adams came through the youth system, and it is even possible that he would never have made it at Arsenal if Martin Keown(who had been preferred over Adams by previous Manager Don Howe) had not fallen out with George Graham and left because GG refused to honour an agreed £50 pay rise, - that would not do now, would it?

Seaman before he joined Arsenal was RELEASED by Leeds Utd, then played for Peterborough Utd, and then QPR, and was not an International - imagine the uproar now if we bought a guy with that background no matter how much POTENTIAL he was said to have.

Dixon was RELEASED by Chester City and Burnley and went to Bury, and was still playing lower league for Stoke before joining Arsenal, and of course he was not an international - would be seen as a joke signing by many if that happened now.

Bould made his debut as a right back at Stoke, and they did not rate him so they loaned him out to lower side Torquay who played him at CB and he did well.  He returned to Stoke and did well in the second division, Arsenal beat off competition from Everton to sign him for £390K, of course he was not an International, in fact he barely got an England call up even when with Arsenal - there would be uproar by some of today's fans if Wenger signed someone with his background to be first choice.

Winterburn was RELEASED by two teams, Birmingham and Oxford, before coming through the divisions with Wimbledon (one season in Div 1) before joining Arsenal. He too had no international experience, and like Bould was almost totally overlooked by England during his long successful career at Arsenal, and lets not forget that nearly all of his limited playing time in his first year at Arsenal was as a right back, as he could not dislodge Kenny Sansom.  Again if someone with his background was to be signed now it would be deemed another sign of how little ambition we have, or how low we have stooped.

So before you write off Koscielny because he has played lower league, or is not an international, or you just never have heard of him, please think of our famous back five and who they were and what they had achieved before they joined Arsenal.

One last thing, I see when Vermaelen is mentioned as a similar type signing last year it is accompanied by a lot of bull like, "but he played for Ajax, he is an International", forget the name Ajax, the Dutch league is lower ranked than the French league, and Belgium are hardly a major international side at the moment; and for me International football is well below club football in standard.  I have never seen the guy play and have no idea if he will be more Cygan than Adams, but PLEASE guys at least wait to judge Koscielny until you have actually seen him play a few games.