Have Arsenal only got one world class player as Carragher suggests or is he talking nonsense as usual?

 

 

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By Martin Kibler

A recent comment from Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports has understandably caused a bit of a stir. By all accounts even his co-presenters can’t get their head around his logic. In a recent assessment on how this years Premier League might pan out this is what he said about Arsenals chances:

“I think the reason so many people seem so confident in predicting Arsenal to win the league isn’t so much about Arsenal. I think it’s more you can’t see anybody else lifting that trophy at the end of the season. I almost feel that every team this season will be thinking this season is the time to prepare for next season to put a challenge in. The attack still hasn’t been improved. There’s no superstar in the attack. They couldn’t get Vinicius Junior. William Saliba is arguably the only world-class player they have.”

So absolutely dismissive of our achievement in winning the premier League and getting to three cup finals, one of which, the Champions League we only lost on penalties. And as well in complete denial that our squad has any real quality within it, save the one World class player, Saliba, and he’s out for the foreseeable.

But this isn’t the first time Arteta’s squad has been dismissed out of hand as being what is effectively substandard.  Wayne Rooney said back in February that, “Arsenal don’t have a single World class player”. This was backed up at the time by Rafael Van der Vaart who said “Arsenal do not have any World Class players. I agree with Wayne Rooney” And of course it goes without saying the muppets at Talksport jumped all over it. And of course what happens in the World today, and what Tony has pointed out so often, once one ‘outlet’ or ‘Talking head’ says something, especially something negative about Arsenal, it gets repeated by everyone. in modern parlance it effectively goes viral. It becomes the truth. It matters little that there is no supporting evidence for this theory, or indeed that there is evidence to the contrary.

At Least it appears that the other half of the comedy double act, Gary Neville accepts we have a couple of World Class defenders at least, but he still seems insistent that none, I repeat none of our forwards are World class, including Saka. He went on to say that at least if we get Alvares he will be that man. That’s nice.

Now, before we even can debate this we have to decide what constitutes World Class. From what I have read, different people put different ideas on this. The following are a small cross section of people’s criteria:

STATISTICS

A lot of judges, myself included put a lot of stock in statistics. But when judging World Class you have to be careful, because the  statistics a player is producing in Turkey for example, are not as impressive as the same, or worse, statistics produced in the major leagues. Even within a league you are going to have much better assist statistics if you are suppling Mbappe rather than the striker in a bottom 3 side. As a keeper you are going to keep more clean sheets behind Arsenals defence than you are Tottenham’s for example. So yes, statistics are part of the equation but they are not everything.

TROPHIES

A lot of judges suggest you cannot be called World Class unless you have won either a major League Title or Champions League meddle. Now as much as this is a tremendous achievement is it really absolutely necessary for a player to do that to be World Class? I argue it is not.

Griezman and Lineker both failed to win either, but I doubt anyone would claim that neither of those at their peak were World Class. And whilst we are talking Tottenham I have two more examples of why this criteria is flawed.

As we know, both Gareth Bale and Harry Kane played for, and excelled at Tottenham. Both moved across the channel in the second half of their careers. Neither won either the title or the Champions League until they did so. But is there anyone in their right mind that would of said either of those players were NOT World Class prior to their move?  Of course they were, which is why they cost the Earth to buy. So yes, trophies are part of the equation, but they are not everything.

EXPERT ANALYSIS IN PUBLICATIONS

By this I mean the kind of publications that produce the ‘Top Ranked Players’ lists. We’ve all seen them, they are everywhere. Now how these publications reach their conclusions I am not entirely sure, but it appears it is a mixture of Data and ‘expert’ opinion. In other words a combination of facts and subjective opinion.

Now to me, out of the three I believe the third version is probably the most balanced. From everything I’ve seen, and from what you will see bellow, it is not an exact science. Some players appear high on one list and a lot lower, or even disappear from another. But by and large the same players appear in every single list. Now I haven’t been able to access all the lists I would of liked as some are subscription only or behind pay walls. Never the less I have accessed four sites that will be well known to everyone, and bellow are extracts from their listings.

Most of these publications break their lists into each position and do a top 20/25. For my purposes I chose the following criteria:

TOP 5 ONLY

I only counted players that were in the ‘top 5 players in the World’ in each particular position. Goalkeeper, Left Back, Right Back etc. Of course, some players are flexible but the stats relate to their primary role. Also, Midfield was a bit confusing as some had tables for defensive, attacking and central. Some lumped them all together so I had to do some separation within some lists.

Bellow is what position Arsenal players were in, within each publications table. Remember, I only counted our players when they achieved a top 5 position and I left out any position we didn’t have a player in the top 5.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

• Goal keeper: 2nd Raya
• Centre Back: 1st Gabriel, 2nd Saliba
• Left Back: 3rd Calafiori
• Right Back: 2nd Timber
• Def Mid Fld: 4th Zubimendi
• Cent Mid Fld: 3rd Rice
• Right Wing: 3rd Saka

1 X best in the World. 3 X 2nd best in the World. 3 X 3rd best in the World. 1 X 4th best in the World.

So, according to Sports Illustrated and using the criteria of being in the top 5 in the World in their position, Arsenal have eight players that qualify as World Class.

GIVEMESPORT

• Goal keeper: 2nd Raya
• Centre Back: 1st Gabriel 2nd Saliba
• Left Back: 2nd Calafiori
• Right Back: 2nd Timber
• Cent Mid Fld: 3rd Rice
• Att Mid Fld: 4th Odegaard 5th: Guimeres
• Right Wing: 5th Saka

1 X best in the World. 4 X 2nd best in the World. 1 X 3rd best in the World. 1 X 4th best in the World. 1 X 5th best in the World.

So, according to Givemesport and using the criteria of being in the top 5 in the World in their position, Arsenal have 9 playeers that qualify as World Class.

FOURFOURTWO

• Goal keeper: 3rd Raya
• Centre Back: 1st Gabriel 2nd Saliba
• Right Back: 3rd Timber
• Cent Mid Fld: 2nd Rice 5th Guimeres
• Right Wing: 2nd Saka

1 X best in the World. 3 X 2nd best in the World. 2 X 3rd best in the World. 1 X 5th best in the World.

So, according to Fourfourtwo and using the criteria of being in the top 5 in the World in their position, Arsenal have sevn players that qualify as World Class.

ESPN

• Centre Back: 1st Gabriel 3rd Saliba
• Left Back: 4th Hincapie
• Right Back: 2nd Timber
• Cent Mid Fld: 2nd Rice
• Att Mid Fld: 3rd: Guimeres
• Right Wing: 4th Saka

1 X best in the World. 2 X 2nd best in the World. 2 X 3rd best in the World. 2 X 4th best in the World.

So, according to ESPN and using the criteria of being in the top 5 in the World in their position, Arsenal have seven players that qualify as World Class.

So, according to these publications Arsenal have an average of just under eight World Class players.

Even if you tighten the criteria to only top three qualify as World Class we still have an average of 6 World Class players.

And here’s a couple more things that rather debunk this notion that Arsenal have very few if any World Class players, and are in fact only champions by default. Over the last four seasons, starting with our first runner up spot in season ’22/’23 we are THE best team in the Premiership, having accumulated 332 points compared to Man City’s 330. Given that for a vast majority of that time Man City have been seen as one of the best club sides the world has ever seen. A team packed with World Class players. How is it that a team with such a dearth of World Class players could not only match them, but surpass them. Yet by some miracle it has happened.

And maybe this little snippet from the Athletic may go some way to explaining quite how this miracle has happened. The following is The Athletics list of the Premierships top 10 players:

• 3rd Rice
• 4th: Gabriel
• 5th: Saliba
• 6th: Guimeres
• 9th: Saka

So five out of ten of the best players in the Premier League play for Arsenal, according to the Athletic at least.

Yet despite all this, Carragher insists Arsenal have only ONE World Class player, and if they do win the title again it will only be becaues the others aren’t trying.

All I can say is, that to do what he has done, with this bunch of average work-a-day players, Arteta must be the best manager this Country has ever seen.