Player-by-Player Season in Review, Part III
By: Martin | June 1st, 2011The grand finale of the player-by-player season in review, coming at you.
Sagna (43 starts, 2 substitute appearances, 3 goals, 3 assists; 38 ratings, 6.72 average rating, 1.5 Man of the Match awards). You know what Sagna is? He’s like the refrigerator. You never think about the refrigerator, even though you use it over and over again every day. But it always does what it is supposed to, and it makes your life so much better and easier. And every once in a while it’s worth taking a second and saying “Damn. If we didn’t have refrigerators, life would suck.” Sagna was deservedly named to his second PFA Team of the year in 2010-2011. He also made the team in 2007-2008, and I thought he deserved to make it last year as well. Doesn’t get nearly as much credit as he deserves because he doesn’t really excel at any one thing, and isn’t going to show up in the highlight reels. But the thing is, he does everything well, he’s smart, and he works hard, and he doesn’t get hurt too often. Just a guy who’s going to give you 45 well above average performances a year, which is incredibly valuable.
Djourou (36 starts, 3 substitute appearances, 1 goal, 1 assist; 32 ratings, 6.76 average rating, 2 Man of the Match awards): Breakthrough season for the Swiss defender, and you really couldn’t help but be happy for the young man. An injury threatened his career keeping him out for the better part of a year. But he stayed with the team. He worked hard in rehab. And he came to all the home games and sat behind the bench. Other players with lengthy injury lay-offs did not do that, and I don’t necessarily criticize them for this (I won’t name names, because every time I’ve made this comparison, someone jumps down my throat about it), but I always really liked it that even though Djourou was hurt for a long period of time, he was acting like he was part of the team and cheering his teammates on. And I’ll be honest — I never thought he’d get back to this level. But he was excellent this year, and picked up so much slack when Vermaelen went down. As bad as things got for us this year, you shudder to think what would have happened had Djourou not stepped up, stayed healthy, and put in some commanding performances at the back. Firmly put himself in the picture for the first-team next season, and if he can play like he played this year, will hopefully be a fixture at Arsenal for many years.
Theo (26 starts, 14 substitute appearances, 13 goals, 11 assists; 34 ratings, 6.78 average rating, 4.5 Man of the Match awards): Maybe he didn’t make the major breakthrough that some of us would have liked, but he undeniably make progress. He seemed spurred on by his World Cup omission, and was particularly effective in the Fall. 6 years ago, he was given way, way too much hype at a young age. But now, I’m not sure that he’s not underrated in a lot of respects — he seems dogged by the same old criticisms, which, although somewhat valid, he is starting to overcome by relying on his strengths. And the bottom line is — look at those numbers. 13 goals and 11 assists in 26 starts and 14 substitute appearances is a very good return for anyone, let alone a 22 year-old. Seemed particularly effective in setting up van Persie with the simplest possible move — getting behind the defense on the right and passing it to van Persie in the box. It’s the kind of simple goal Arsenal don’t score enough. But if Theo keeps developing, and van Persie stays healthy, it’s the kind of goal we could see a lot more of in years to come.
Wilshere (46 starts, 5 substitute appearances, 2 goals, 9 assists; 44 ratings, 6.82 average rating, 6 Man of the Match awards): Oh, Jacky Boy — what a season you have had. Remember that just 10 months ago, many if not most fans were saying that we should let him go back to Bolton for another season-long loan, because he wasn’t ready to contribute to Arsenal’s first team. All he did was go out and play more minutes than any other Arsenal player this season, and showed a fire, a passion, and a will to win unequaled in the side. I do worry that he’s getting overhyped a bit. He’s still just 19, and still has some holes in his game — he has to learn how to finish chances, his final ball is often a bit lacking, and he lets his temper get the best of him far too often. But he’s the best player his age at Arsenal since Cesc, and has a sky-high future at the club. Been with the academy since he was 9, loves the club, and has future Arsenal captain written all over him.
van Persie (26 starts, 7 substitute appearances, 22 goals, 7 assists; 30 ratings, 6.88 average rating, 6 Man of the Match awards): Full disclosure. I have no idea how van Persie is 4th on this list. When Arsenal.com recently did a fan vote for player of the year, and Wilshere won over van Persie, I took to Twitter to say how ridiculous this was. To me, van Persie was pretty clearly our player of the season, even though he only played half the season because of injury. 22 goals in 26 starts is a simply amazing stat, and I would say he was the equal, if not the better, of any striker in the world in the spring. While the rest of the team crumbled around him, he stood so tall and just kept working and scoring. He was really unfortunate in that this happened while the rest of the team collapses, which became the story, and he didn’t get nearly the credit he deserved. I think poor team performances tend to effect the ratings we give players, and so many of his rated performances came in the post-February collapse that his ratings are far lower than they should have been. For me, he was our player of the season, because he was just that good in the matches he was able to play in.
Cesc (29 starts, 7 substitute appearances, 9 goals, 14 assists; 32 ratings, 6.97 average rating, 4 Man of the Match awards): Yep, boys and girls, this is what a “bad” year for Cesc Fabregas looks like — nearly a 7 average rating, and still a ton of goals created. He was clearly tired from the World Cup, and struggled in the early going, and had some injury problems throughout the season. Particularly worrying was his recurring hamstring issues, which are starting to look more and more like something that’s going to negatively impact his career every year. But when he’s fit, and he plays, we don’t have anyone like him. A masterful passer and creator, he is fully capable of a brilliance whenever the ball is at his feet. And for all the criticism of him, I do think he cares about the club and is a good captain. Obviously we’re all holding our breath about this summer, but we don’t have anyone who can step in and replace him, so I very much hope he stays.
Flaps (21 starts, 0 substitute appearances, 23 goals conceded; 18 ratings, 6.97 average rating, 3 Man of the Match awards): Raise your hands if you said anything like “Lukasz Fabianski will, on average, be one of our two best players this season” back in July or August. Put your hands down, you damn liars. Almost all of us had lost faith in him, but this season he stepped up like a grown-ass man and, without anyone but Arsenal fans noticing, turned into a world-class keeper. There were very, very few, if any, keepers in the Premiership who were better match in, match out than Flaps was. Perhaps he benefited from the anti-van Persie effect, in that he was playing when we were riding high and got a general bump in his ratings from that, but I’m not qualifying this. Maybe he wasn’t our 2nd best player on average, but he was awfully good and deserves a ton of credit for overcoming the adversity he’s faced to turn into an excellent keeper. Certainly earned at the very least the right to challenge Wojo for the starting job in camp next summer.
And, without further ado, according to the ratings, our player of the year is…
Nasri (40 starts, 8 substitute appearances; 16 goals, 4 assists; 41 ratings, 7.10 average rating, 6.5 Man of the Match awards): A true breakthrough year for Samir, as he turned into one of the very best players in the world in the fall. Seemed to regress/revert a bit in the spring, but this year still represents a massive step forward for him, as he went from a promising young player to one of the keystones of Arsenal. Scored some brilliant goals, and impressed everyone with his skill and work rate. If you had said before the season that this season would be Nasri’s last with the club, while Gooners wouldn’t have been happy, I doubt they would have lost too much sleep over it. Now, getting Nasri re-signed has become a huge, huge priority for the club, and he’s looking like yet another superb Wenger signing. If he can put together a full year of what he did in the fall, he’ll start to enter the discussion for one of the world’s very best players.
Well, that’s it for the player reviews. As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section.
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