Quote Originally Posted by Syn View Post
Well that's certainly the British way of looking at it. Which is why crud like Scott Parker gets named player of the year. The evidence is all there to show Arteta makes a shitload of tackles and interceptions and he was a major reason we had the second best defensive record in the league last year. As fans, it's nice to see someone charging around 100mph and fouling people, but ultimately we are interested in how easy it is for the opposition to get in behind the midfield and create a goalscoring chance. Last season we were as tight as we have been in the league for some time, and the stats show it. This season with Flamini playing a bigger part, we'll see.

Ideally, we want the pace/energy of Flamini with Arteta's brain, and I was hoping we would spend big money on a DM.
I just don't think Arteta in the DM position is the type of player to make us compete. I get the balance argument and appreciate it, but it's no coincidence that we haven't been competing since our last real DM, which was Flamini coincidentally, left.