[Tennie]

SENDEROS: COMUNICATO UFFICIALE A.C.MILAN
27/08/2008
L'A.C.Milan comunica di aver raggiunto un accordo con l'Arsenal F.C. per l'acquisizione a titolo temporaneo delle prestazioni sportive del giocatore Philippe Senderos.

[AC Milan announces having reached agreement with Arsenal FC for the loan of the player Philippe Senderos.]

[han2503]

An interesting view from an Arsenal blog

http://gunnerblog.com/?p=1069

Philippe Senderos will today sign for AC Milan on a season-long loan deal with a view to a permanent move. Whilst I’ll be interested to see if Arsenal.com mention the possibility of a permanent move, it’s clear this isn’t a Havard Nordveit-style loan move for development’s sake - Philippe is being allowed to move on because Arsene considers him dispensible.

That in itself is somewhat of a watershed. Senderos is rare in that he’s one of the first of Wenger’s ‘projects’ to be abandoned. After years of investing time and money in the Swiss defender’s potential, he has now decided to let him go, seemingly preferring to rely on new signing Mikael Silvestre. For the first time in years, Arsene has chosen a veteran over a youngster. And that might not be such a bad thing. Firstly because it might suggest he recognises that his youth experiment has its limits, but secondly because Senderos could never have become the player we needed him to be at a club as lacking in experienced defensive experts as Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger is many things, but he is not a defensive coach. His interest is primarily in attacking or creative players. The great centre-backs he’s had (Adams, Keown, Campbell) have all been either bought or inherited. Kolo Toure is an astonishing athlete and outstanding footballer, but not a born defender. Senderos is. Like John Terry or Nemanja Vidic, it’s inconcievable that Senderos could play in any other position on the field. Wenger does not understand these creatures. They are foreign to him and to his way of thinking. And one has the impression that most of the coaching staff feel the same.

Defending is seen as a secondary art at Arsenal. Arsene was lucky to inherit the world’s best back four, and then to have a defensive phenomenon like Sol Campbell to carry him through the early part of the decade. But since Sol’s departure, the deficiencies in our coaching have become clear - we don’t have a cohesive defensive unit, and are clueless when it comes to set pieces.

For a time, it seemed like Senderos would be the solution to that problem. When Campbell was out injured in both 2005 and 2006, he came in and was outstanding, particularly in our record-breaking run to the Champions League final. Toure and Senderos was a defensive partnership that had a towering stopper and a quick recovering defender - it is the formula that made Adams/Keown and Campbell/Toure such successful pairings. What’s more, the proof was there - it worked, keeping out the likes of Juventus and Real Madrid.

But then Arsene bought William Gallas. And more than the arrival of Silvestre, more than the Champions League exit at Anfield, more than his travails against Didier Drogba, that is what did for Senderos’ Arsenal career. It tells you something about the esteem in which he was held at that point that many assumed Gallas had been bought to play at left-back and replace Ashley Cole.

Gallas is a good defender, and one can understand why Arsene wanted to bring in what he considered proven quality, but he’s hardly been an unequivocal success, has he? One can’t help but wonder what might have happened if Arsene had stuck with Senderos and Toure - not only might we have had a central defensive pairing that functioned, but we might have had a leader and organiser to boot. As it was, Senderos’ confidence was shattered by Wenger’s continually wavering faith, and he became the nervous wreck fans grew to doubt.

But I can’t help but feel that Senderos did not fail us. We failed him, by failing to have a structure in place that was able to his exploit his undoubted potential - just think back to his remarkable European debut at home to Bayern Munich. He is right to move. I now firmly believe he’ll go on to have a good career, starting with an immediate improvement in the slower-paced, defensively astute Italian league. We at Arsenal won’t benefit from that - if he does well, he’ll be staying there permanently, and if he doesn’t then we’ll get back a faltering player who knows the manager no longer values him. Senderos’ Arsenal career is over, whatever the nature of today’s transfer.

This post has been edited by han2503: Aug 27 2008, 09:38 PM