It's all pie in the sky. (om nom nom nom)
Fact is, the guy is rarely available for selection. Even when he is fit, you can bet your bottom dollar he will be crocked again in 2-3 games tops. Let him go and rebuild his career elsewhere, it's sad but that's football.
If he comes back fighting fit and manages to play consistently well, then I will happily eat my words.
Oh absolutely. I'd love Diaby to be a reliable member of the squad, but I think we all just need to accept that it isn't going to happen. His career has been destroyed, and it's through no fault of his own.Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
he should just go ahead and retire a la sebastian deisler (formerly of bayern munich). i really like diaby as a player but at some point we have to accept that he will never be a consistent member of the squad. he's getting older too so it's going to be harder to come back each time
i think you could argue that neither the mental injuries surrounding his injury - that any person would go through - or his decision making in games are exclusive from each other. given the ridiculous amount of times he has been injured i would suppose that these 'mental issues' carry over onto the pitch (without meaning to lessen the finger of blame when he does make a mistake), deep in his own fears that another injury is very likely to arrive. it's a vicious cycle he appears to be stuck in that will only be resolved through no decision of his own. also let's not forget that at his best - and his benchmark was the carling final v chelsea - his decision making was never questionable. those sort of dominating performances have not happened regularly enough i agree but they are also the kind of levels very few players are able to demonstrate against similar opponents.
as frustrated as i am about keeping diaby around the place, i keep faith in the fact that no matter the acknowledged failings of wenger over the past few years, his judgement of releasing/giving up on players remains strong. I would imagine he has seen information that indicates diaby has a significant future at the club; RVP seems to be a very relevant example to highlight - given the cost of these players, even one fantastic season would be a return on the investment.
Are we as a club really in a position to plead poverty with paying our stars premium wages when we have several squad members Diaby being the main example who are on 50K plus a week but spend more time on the treatment table than on the playing field?
We should be more ruthless with players like Diaby and show them the door.
I’ve got a bit of a problem with that attitude. He was injured playing for us. I think it’s our duty to try and get him back to full fitness. It may costs us but the kid can’t do anything else besides play football. He’s trained for this from youth. It’s not as if he can go and do something else. It was a cruel injury and maybe some sort of compensation should be paid out by opposing teams when a player is ruined like this. A 3 match ban is bullshit. In Dan Smith’s case, he didn’t even get a red card. Was he even booked? The FA need to look into this. They can dish out an 8 match ban for a racist but only 3 games for a reckless challenge that can end careers?
£50k a week is a lot of money but regardless of how much he earns, I think it’s only right that a company picks up the medical bill if an employee is badly injured while at work. If a factory worker losses a limb on the job, it’s pretty cruel to tell them to piss off cause he’s no good to them anymore. I know football and manual labour are miles apart but it’s the same principle. We should do the best we can to get him back to his best. If we send him off to another club, at least make sure he has some sort of playing career left and it’s not some shitty short term deal where he’s hung out to dry after a year or so. Some people might not agree with this but if we were talking about anyone else besides a footballer, I think there would be a bit more sympathy.
Wenger hasn't been ruthless for years. Selling Merson, dropping Wright - that was ruthless.
To be fair this season he did ship out Denilson, Bendy and Eboue. But these days it takes him 5 years to work out that a player is shite.
P'n'G, it's taken me a while to come back to you on this but I don't really agree with you here. In terms of the punishments to the offending player and your point about the FA, I totally agree with you there. Where our opinions differ is on the rehabilition period for Diaby and what we should be doing as a club. Look I accept that Diaby hasn't been the same since the incident and accept that it wasn't his fault he got crocked. As a club we have a duty to look after our players, but I think babysitting them to the extent we have with Diaby is a stretch too far. Arsene actually mentions Diaby as a player who is seen as integral to our plans, he won't buy in Midfield because we have Diaby (a player who is regularly injured) coming back from injury. I personally think he's made this mistake far too many times over the past few seasons with players, we all know who the players are.
i could be wrong but i can't recall wenger saying he wouldn't specifically buy in central midfield because we have diaby. everyone was saying get rid of rvp because of his injury record and now look, so i would put more faith in the knowledge wenger has about diaby's possible future than you seem to be at present.
Last edited by Kano; 03-01-2012 at 11:47 AM.
I'll have to try and dig up the quote but Wenger very recently said he had Wilshire & Diaby coming back so he won't buy in Central Midfield.
Everyone wasn't saying we should get rid of RVP and to be brutally honest we had sufficient quality upfront to be able to give RVP the time he needed to get healthy. We don't have that luxury in Central Midfield at present. Moreover RVP has repeatedly shown large flashes of brilliance in his career here, Diaby on the other hand has had a few decent moments, let's not go overboard here.
For sure Wenger knows more about his players and their abilities than me, that's why he's our manager and paid the highest salary in PL but he's absolutely not walking on water here, he has got a fair few calls on developing players wrong over the past few years.
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