Adios Senderos

A smidgen of good news this week, AC Milan have taken Philippe Senderos on loan with a view to purchasing the player at the end of the season for approximately £6m. Why a club with the richly talented defensive history of AC Milan want Senderos at all is slightly baffling - don't they scout players? At least in their wisdom they've allowed themselves the option of returning the player back to Arsenal should he fail to impress.

Senderos is a player who should have been sold two seasons ago and replaced by a player of equal stature but more composure, technical ability and intelligence. He doubtless cost Arsenal a place in the Champions League semi-final last season, and then had the gall to come out afterwards and blame Arsene Wenger for his wretched performance at Anfield, stating: "I just assumed my mistake on the first goal for Liverpool. Then I was the victim of the choices made by the coach."(???)

Out of all the players Arsene Wenger has ever bought, Senderos is surely one of those who made the least improvement. I'd go as far as to say that he is almost exactly the same error-prone individual that Wenger first signed in December 2003 for the princely sum of £2.5m. Senderos biggest weakness is not his poor distribution, clumsiness, tendency to play the man instead of the ball and an inability to understand the concept of the offside trap, it's more than that - it's his mental weakness. He's adequate - and can even play well - against teams in the lower echelons of the Premier League table, but in big important games he completely folds.

It's true that the player's best spell was during Arsenal's Champions League campaign of 2005-06, he looked decent all the way up to the final, but Arsenal were playing a deep-lying 4-5-1 formation throughout the majority of that tournament which certainly played to Senderos' strengths - as it would any centre-back of his ilk. However, normally Arsenal do not play to Senderos' strengths, Wenger prefers his teams to push up and play it out from the back, leaving plenty of space behind the centre backs. Through balls can be mopped up by the likes of speed merchants, Toure and Gallas - whereas Senderos has always been slow, ponderous and nervy when left exposed to one-on-one situations.

Regardless, I'll say good luck to big Phil; he gave his all - you can't criticise him for that, but it wasn't good enough and I hope he does well at Milan, least of all because that way there's no chance of them sending him back with a damaged goods label.

As all of us Arsenal fans are aware of course, the release of Senderos does not mean all is well in Arsenal's back line. The club still needs a powerhouse centre-back with a strong aerial presence, Toure and Gallas are incapable - and by all accounts Silvestre's not too hot on that front either. But that doesn't mean we should have retained Senderos - it's never a bad idea to empty out the trash once in a while, as at least it leaves a vacancy that the slightly more promising Djourou or Song could fill.

Mikael Silvestre of course is a step up from Senderos, if not a massive one - but at least the ex-Man Utd man has a worldly composure, and that might be important come the tail end of the season, assuming Arsenal are capable of challenging for anything by then.

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