Thursday 22 May 2008

Defending big Phil

Whatever one thinks of Philip Senderos as a footballer, he has always come across to me as a genuinely top bloke on and off the pitch, in fact I don't think I have ever seen a player look so genuinely remorseful after being hashly sent off earlier this season. Big Phil is a good guy and should be shown a little bit of respect by us Arsenal fans.

One blog recently led with the headline 'Nasri signs, Big Phil off, excitement overload!' the other day, more than a touch disrespectful for a guy that has given 100% to the cause whenever he has been asked and who has always been the model professional. Some of us appear to have rather short memories, big Phil did form part of our super solid defence that got as far as the Champions League final in 2006 claiming clean sheet after clean sheet along the way.

More recently he has actually played very well for us on the whole, he came in for Kolo earlier this year and shored up the defense somewhat. Admittedly he was turned too easily by Torres at Anfield, but Torres is not a bad player and overall his errors have been few and far between. He did also play rather well away to the mighty Milan in that famous 2-0 win. There is certainly nothing that he should have to feel ashamed about, even if some rather fair weather fools insist upon turning him into a scapegoat.

Some so called Arsenal fans have been quick to offer Phil their mighty opinion with 'Fuck off and leave' and 'he seems to be an arrogant kind who thinks he's all that'. It seems that the majority of sensible Gooner opinion sees Senderos as a very good young defender who has been unfairly scapegoated. While it is fashionable these days to get carried away with far fetched and tedious transfer rumours about players that none of us have ever seen in action, some of us would do better to show a little bit more respect to some of the top professionals that we already have plying their trade at Arsenal Football Club. It may seem clever to talk of replacing most of our squad with some exciting new players from foreign leagues that have performed well on Championship Manager, however it most certainly is not.

5 comments:

Ted said...

100% agree 1979. Good stuff. Big Phil is an honest pro and an extremely talented one at that. If you discount his matches against Drogba, Big Phil has been a consistently good performer for us. Easily good enough to be part of the Arsenal squad and the morons should leave him alone.

1979gooner said...

I'm glad I've written something you agree with!

Hope the house move is going well.

Ted said...

It would be boring if we just agreed all the time!

All going well here, but If I see another box of crap to unpack, I'm going to cry...

iainthegooner said...

Hmm sorry guys, I cant agree. Senderos is on occasion an excellent centre back but that is generally after a run ion the team. He is a confidence player and while he is gaining said confidence or trying to regain it after yet another mistake he is a liability. Nice guy I agree, good enough for Arsenal I do not agree.

1979gooner said...

Personally I am not convinced either way by Senderos.

Top bloke, good player, good enough for Arsenal? Jury is still out.

I still think he's worth keeping in the squad and may well yet prove some people wrong.

Either way he doesn't deserve a lot of the personal criticism that he's recieved from some rather vitriolic morons.