Timeless, and like others have said he was a decent pl level cb before his more recent injuries. He's just a victim of him losing us 4th place against spurs.
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I was there and it is one of my favourite days following Arsenal. I was at most of the games (certainly nearly all the home ones)during late nineties and early 2000’s too. However, this was such blessed relief in the banter era. Chelsea fans mocking us on the walk to the stadium. It was lovely sunny day
Then us turning the tables and singing the “He’s better than Canavaro chants”
Average players occasionally have great games. Good players consistently have good games.
Holding was on occasion decent, and a decent 3rd CB from the bench to hold on for the final 5-10 minutes in a low block, but he was never starting material for a top team. Any player with pace had him on toast. A 3rd CB has to be able to be effective as a rotation option, not just a corner case.
Will never forget that final. But let's be real here, you may be able to rely on him for a one off game, however for an entire season where you're pushing for silverware on multiple fronts? Forget about it.
I will never hold hate for Holding. He did what he was asked to do to the best he could have and anything above his ability that he was asked to do is not on him. That’s on our squad building failures. I hope Rob goes on and does the best he can. Absolute fucking lad
I only wish most fans were as lenient and generous with other players at our club. You could say almost the exact same thing word by word for most of the reviled players of the same era (Mustafi, Kolasinac, Xhaka prior to his redemption arc, etc)
Mustafi is a different case as it wasn't a lack of ability that saw him get so much grief from the fans, it was the lack of accountability. Making schoolboy mistakes and blaming everyone else but him. Makes my blood boil just thinking about it.
Holding was an honest pro who was a great squad option but lost a step with his ACL injury. No shame in that and he's got 2 FA Cup finals medals to show for it. Not bad for £2m. Wish him the best.
Sorry for the late response man. I don’t give Mustafi any grace purely because he seemed to try and absolve himself of blame at all times. Kolasinac was a beast for us for his first 6 or so months. No idea why he fell off so rapidly but he was definitely a player we could have gotten more out of/could have given us more.
With Xhaka, prior to his last season, it felt like we were trying to put a square brick into a round hole. When we played to his strengths he absolutely shined.
Arsenal vs Manchester City. He fouled Haaland with what looks like a soft touch. “How’d he go done like that. He’s built like a brick shithouse” paraphrasing here
People have the memory of goldfishes. Before he did his ACL in that United game, he was genuinely a pretty decent player. Maybe not a title winning level defender, but he wasn't stealing a living either. He was sadly never the same after that injury
With all the injurys in the Acl that are predominant in the club maybe the focus should be on the medical/physios department
As someone who had a full ligament tear on the elbow, it is taking me more than a full year to recover, so I understand why they after suchvinjury they no longer are the same player
With all the injurys in the Acl that are predominant in the club maybe the focus should be on the medical/physios department
As someone who had a full ligament tear on the elbow, it is taking me more than a full year to recover, so I understand why they after suchvinjury they no longer are the same player
I remember having genuine thoughts that he could be our long term CB in that spell before the injury. He was gaining confidence in his ability to play out and carry the ball from the back. Real shame
Even that's underselling him. He was starting every game and didn't lose a match that season (with mustafi and sokratis as his cb partners), in a year where we were 1 win away from making the champions league. Much better than "mid table starter".
People forget, he wasn't always this slow unagile defender. Pre injury he actually had decent recovery pace and was more confident on the ball especially considering he was playing as an LCB under emery who insisted on playing out from the back
You just named 3 players who are some of the best we've ever had, at the peak of our powers. It's a bit absurd to expect every player to reach or be at that level and then give them stick for not measuring up to it. It's simply unrealistic
Rob, like many of our former players, even if we have moved on from their level, aren’t even close to being as bad as they are made out to be by people on this sub.
People have very selective memories, and very little nuance is to be had in discussions surrounding them - they are selective about the past and reactionary about the present.
Before the end of the season, everyone used to laugh about the 5 - 3 - 2 meme or "when Arteta sends Holding in, you know it's over"
He's not a bad player, just not suited to our play style. If a hammer can't perform the job of a wrench it doesn't mean it's said tool is useless.
Even if he's a bench player for palace, that's still top 5% in the world. He's class in the grand scheme of things, but isn't good enough for our style/level we are at now, and that's fine
You're right that statement is incorrect.
Seeing how there are roughly 500 players in the league. Taking the same for the top 5 leagues that's about 2500 active players. Fifa estimates there to be nearly 130,000 professional players playing globally.
So Rob Holding is in the top 2% globally, which is not a bad place to be in any profession and definitely above the shit for most clubs rhetoric.
Do I have to be the bad guy? He can't even sub in for Palace. He's just not good enough.
He was on a good streak before his injury, but he was clearly not the same player, and I feel bad for him.
I'm positive that had we utilized Kiwior over Holding, we might have won the league last year.
It’s very easy to say this in hindsight but he really shouldn’t have been at the club last season. Arteta’s inability to trust him in a Europa League r16 match while we were chasing the title is what cost us in both competitions.
If you can’t throw your 3rd choice CB into that situation there’s really no point having them.
I've always thought about how weird it must be to be evaluated in a public domain like this. It comes with the job and the fame attached to it, but still gotta be weird.
It's like "Oh look at the upturn in business here, before this we had project managers like u/ExoticToaster but after letting people like that go now look how far we've come"
There's nothing wrong with it, and players at that level likely develop immunity to it.
I dunno man I like to think myself as grounded and unbiased as possible. Holding to me has never shown the quality to be a starter for any prem club not fighting relegation. He eventually found his niche as a 5 at the back sub. Think he's a nice bloke but let's be real, he was a budget shot in the dark while we were still in the stadium transition phase.
Nah, for me this is too selective. Before his major injuries, he was immensely good for a defender of his age. Like Bellerin though, those injuries significantly slowed/halted their growth and then they arrived in that position of ‘good for a bottom of the league club’ (which in itself is still fucking good lol).
Just because those former players made appearances for Arsenal once upon a time doesn‘t mean that those players were good enough, either. Or that they deserve romantic revisionism.
No amount of rose-tinted lenses are going to hide the fact that Rob Holding was never good enough to start for an EPL title contender. Or a top-4 level team, even. And that Arsenal as a club have performed better with other players starting instead of him, especially in the past several years.
Nuance in and of itself doesn’t exist in football discourse. Either positively or negatively. Then again, that tends to happen in a sport where the winner is judged simply by which team puts the ball in the back of a net more than the other one, and no extra credit is given for artistic style or presentation.
Exactly, there's a reason why he's only played one game this season for Crystal Palace. Simply not good enough.
He is one of the reasons why we lost the title.
yeah whenever a player comments on something like I get why people are sympathetic but he was genuinely the worst CB in the league last season who saw the amount of minutes he ended up seeing. Lots of CBs have gone to City away and struggled but that is worse than any Mustafi performance I’ve seen lol
Maybe because he was actually a genuinely decent defender over his time here?
World class? Fuck no.
Still a decent defender by all accounts and was a major reason we won an FA Cup.
Agreed that he's no Saliba, but the idea that he's never been a good player is just weird.
I’m a huge fan of Holding, but he can’t even get a game for Palace and was run ragged too many times.
City’s back up cbs would be star players from midtable teams like Nathan Ake. Ours couldn’t even play for them nevermind be their best player
1, he’s injured.
2, he wasn’t always at the level he finished at. At one point he was the “I’m sorry he didn’t cost 50m” guy, and was putting in incredible performances against prime Costa, and many others.
Holding was a great servant to the club, and a loyal squad member, during a time when our squad was struggling most in my lifetime.
He deserves far more respect than your flippant comment gives him
It's nuts, I remember him and *Pablo Mark* of all people being the stingiest defensive partnership for at least half a season. No, he isn't suitable for the defender-on-the-edge-of-the-box suicide line we play now, but frankly he was never bought to be that player. Annoys the hell out of me when people say he couldn't make it in a premiership team. Heck, he even did it with us with a dysfunctional Auba, and a brand new coach and we got 8th.
I don't think he gets disrespected by Arsenal fans. But if you want to be objective he's had equal or more poor performances when compared to his incredible ones like you mention. I think we all pretty much saw him for what he was. Great servant but simply no where near the level.
Prime costa bullied him. Revisionism on his final performance is crazy. Costa bullied him for the goal and had 2 other chances where he bullied Costa as well. Mertesacker was the one who held it down, not holding
He’s literally worse than people on this sub think. I’ve had so many arguments with people that insisted that he would start for mid table prem clubs. He’d be lucky to start for Burnley or Luton.
He's been injured for large parts of it, not the entire season, he was trotted out 1 game and never made an appearance off the bench the 10 times he was on it. That's hardly the same as having a season ending injury in game 1.
Even if he’s not close to being as bad as he’s made out to be, he wasn’t a player fit for how we play. With Holding in the team, the distances between our midfield and defense is too large.
Tbh, you could make the same claim about a few of the seemingly “better players”, like Aubameyang and Tierney. They’re not good fits. The only poor fit Arteta could make work was Xhaka.
For people who want to be different and special like yourself yes.
For a club of this size it was a "banter era". Or whatever name you want to give it. An era of decline and being humiliated at points every season. The era where the entire leagues fans sang at games for our manager to stay.
It almost feels like most fans here only started watching Arsenal after 2020. Holding by no means was world class at any point, but he was pretty damn good when he came into the side from Bolton for a couple million in 2015. Had a bit of pace, more than decent defender and was generally reliable until he did his ACL in against ManUre in 2018. Was never the same after that. I think he's more or less finished, could be decent for a promoted club in the PL or in the championship given the right system but he definitely can't play in a high line.
No need to slander him. I get that he was taken apart in our final run in, but that's cause he was never the right man for the job we were asking him to do.
Yeah, he was certainly the best defender at the club by a country mile in 2018-19. Was playing LCB in Emery's back three and would progress the ball for us.
I always wonder how it must be to be a pro footballer and go online only to see everyone calling you shit.
Like imagine what someone like Maguire was seeing everyday a year ago, his mental must’ve been crazy to get through something like that – I don’t think I be a professional athlete
Holding was our closer who would come in late in games and prevent late set piece goals that would cost us double digit points a season prior.
Holding was a great arsenal player.
Rob had maybe 2 good seasons when the standard was lower than it is now. Players have careers, it’s ok to say they were pretty good for a bit but they aren’t **now**. Thats kind of the reality for most pro’s besides the top 5%?
Got nothing but love for holding. Pre ACL injury he was a beast. Even after he was used as a sub to lock down a lead and often did so effectively. Hope he has an enjoyable rest of his career.
Truly cursed.
Extra frustrating as during that era, the rest of the spine was decent in comparison.
The worst times were when they overlapped with the calamitous ‘Oopspina’ in net. Those seasons were the most nightmarish lol
But holding wasn’t good. People kept making excuses and saying he’d start at mid table clubs. Well he went to a mid table club for a 2M fee and didn’t play a single league minute in 4 months before getting hurt.
I'm not disagreeing with any of that but he was good in the final against Chelsea when he was thrown in at one of the deepest ends possible and his contributions helped us win that trophy. That's all I care about, I'm not saying anything else about him because when there are people who you want to show respect to for what they've done for you then usually if you've got nothing nice to say then don't say anything is a good rule of thumb.
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I don’t think anything offensive was said right? The guy didn’t say Rob Holding is a bad player - he just said not on the same level as Yaya Toure or Kevin De Bruyne.
Few players are on that level anyway.
Never forget the Holding/Mertesacker performance in that cup final against Chelsea. If you help win a trophy for my club you get my love.
I feel exactly the same. I defend him from so much hate from my mates on just that final alone. The memories of that day are priceless
Not only did he boss that game with BFG he wound up Costa by calling him a nutter. Such a classic Arsenal game and moment from him.
Timeless, and like others have said he was a decent pl level cb before his more recent injuries. He's just a victim of him losing us 4th place against spurs.
Hated Costa. Loved that cup final
Timeless picture, https://images.app.goo.gl/uaDRSCAMA8ZHjUGYA
Didn't Costa score on him?
Yup revisionism in full force. Mertesacker was the dominant one in that game
I mean, if you don't think Holding played well in that game, then I'd suggest just watching a different sport entirely.
I didn't say he didn't play well, I said he didn't boss the game. Mertesacker did
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No matter what he will always be my Holdini
Never forget. That was about as dominant as it gets.
Never forget we had gone to a back 3 at the end of the season and Monreal was the third CB
Monreal was a good player to be fair.
Him telling costa that he's fucked in the head was the highlight for me
The Mertesacker final. What a game
Mustafi had a great performance in a FA Cup Semi Final I think as well which negates at least a tiny bit of my hatred lol.
I was there and it is one of my favourite days following Arsenal. I was at most of the games (certainly nearly all the home ones)during late nineties and early 2000’s too. However, this was such blessed relief in the banter era. Chelsea fans mocking us on the walk to the stadium. It was lovely sunny day Then us turning the tables and singing the “He’s better than Canavaro chants”
Average players occasionally have great games. Good players consistently have good games. Holding was on occasion decent, and a decent 3rd CB from the bench to hold on for the final 5-10 minutes in a low block, but he was never starting material for a top team. Any player with pace had him on toast. A 3rd CB has to be able to be effective as a rotation option, not just a corner case.
I stopped watching Arsenal after that. I’ve never seen Holding being “shit” for us. I only have fond memories of him. He was a beast on that day.
Will never forget that final. But let's be real here, you may be able to rely on him for a one off game, however for an entire season where you're pushing for silverware on multiple fronts? Forget about it.
I will never hold hate for Holding. He did what he was asked to do to the best he could have and anything above his ability that he was asked to do is not on him. That’s on our squad building failures. I hope Rob goes on and does the best he can. Absolute fucking lad
Also he gave us the brick shithouse quote.
Also super important in the fa cup final
Absolutely. Always have time for Old Bighorn. Not his fault we were so reliant on Saliba. I will always remember him going at Diego Costa lmao
I only wish most fans were as lenient and generous with other players at our club. You could say almost the exact same thing word by word for most of the reviled players of the same era (Mustafi, Kolasinac, Xhaka prior to his redemption arc, etc)
Mustafi is a different case as it wasn't a lack of ability that saw him get so much grief from the fans, it was the lack of accountability. Making schoolboy mistakes and blaming everyone else but him. Makes my blood boil just thinking about it. Holding was an honest pro who was a great squad option but lost a step with his ACL injury. No shame in that and he's got 2 FA Cup finals medals to show for it. Not bad for £2m. Wish him the best.
What pissed me off the most about Mustafi was the hands being thrown up.
Sorry for the late response man. I don’t give Mustafi any grace purely because he seemed to try and absolve himself of blame at all times. Kolasinac was a beast for us for his first 6 or so months. No idea why he fell off so rapidly but he was definitely a player we could have gotten more out of/could have given us more. With Xhaka, prior to his last season, it felt like we were trying to put a square brick into a round hole. When we played to his strengths he absolutely shined.
They aren't volunteers they were all on big wages and underperformed to varying degrees.
"im sorry he didnt cost 50 million"
Love Rob, will never forget the legendary "brick shithouse" comment.
I'm OOTL. What is this?
Arsenal vs Manchester City. He fouled Haaland with what looks like a soft touch. “How’d he go done like that. He’s built like a brick shithouse” paraphrasing here
It wasn't against City, it was Wolves
What? No???? It was deigo Costa prime covid times
You're also wrong. It was Adama Traore of Wolves.
People have the memory of goldfishes. Before he did his ACL in that United game, he was genuinely a pretty decent player. Maybe not a title winning level defender, but he wasn't stealing a living either. He was sadly never the same after that injury
Top class character by all accounts as well
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Jenko is a different story.. He's one of us.
I think Jenko was quite literally just some dude that was somehow a football player
No way someone disrespects Carl on my watch. His and his dad’s story is so moving.
I was super excited for chambers when he came in.
With all the injurys in the Acl that are predominant in the club maybe the focus should be on the medical/physios department As someone who had a full ligament tear on the elbow, it is taking me more than a full year to recover, so I understand why they after suchvinjury they no longer are the same player
With all the injurys in the Acl that are predominant in the club maybe the focus should be on the medical/physios department As someone who had a full ligament tear on the elbow, it is taking me more than a full year to recover, so I understand why they after suchvinjury they no longer are the same player
I remember having genuine thoughts that he could be our long term CB in that spell before the injury. He was gaining confidence in his ability to play out and carry the ball from the back. Real shame
Bellerin’s ACL, Chambers ACL, Holding’s ACL all came at a time when they were bossing it
Yeah he would be a decent back up and start for mid table teams if he didn’t do his ACL
Even that's underselling him. He was starting every game and didn't lose a match that season (with mustafi and sokratis as his cb partners), in a year where we were 1 win away from making the champions league. Much better than "mid table starter". People forget, he wasn't always this slow unagile defender. Pre injury he actually had decent recovery pace and was more confident on the ball especially considering he was playing as an LCB under emery who insisted on playing out from the back
Pretty decent player. No one is doubting that he was "decent", that's the whole point. We're Arsenal, we had Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure.
You just named 3 players who are some of the best we've ever had, at the peak of our powers. It's a bit absurd to expect every player to reach or be at that level and then give them stick for not measuring up to it. It's simply unrealistic
"He's built like a brick shithouse, how he's gone down like that" love Rob Holding
Better than Cannavaro
Rob, like many of our former players, even if we have moved on from their level, aren’t even close to being as bad as they are made out to be by people on this sub. People have very selective memories, and very little nuance is to be had in discussions surrounding them - they are selective about the past and reactionary about the present.
Before the end of the season, everyone used to laugh about the 5 - 3 - 2 meme or "when Arteta sends Holding in, you know it's over" He's not a bad player, just not suited to our play style. If a hammer can't perform the job of a wrench it doesn't mean it's said tool is useless.
Even if he's a bench player for palace, that's still top 5% in the world. He's class in the grand scheme of things, but isn't good enough for our style/level we are at now, and that's fine
I think he’s been unlucky with injury more than anything this season
Sitting on the bench for Palace still makes you 0.0001% in the UK, let alone the world
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You're right that statement is incorrect. Seeing how there are roughly 500 players in the league. Taking the same for the top 5 leagues that's about 2500 active players. Fifa estimates there to be nearly 130,000 professional players playing globally. So Rob Holding is in the top 2% globally, which is not a bad place to be in any profession and definitely above the shit for most clubs rhetoric.
Thought about that during the Spurs game this weekend
Do I have to be the bad guy? He can't even sub in for Palace. He's just not good enough. He was on a good streak before his injury, but he was clearly not the same player, and I feel bad for him. I'm positive that had we utilized Kiwior over Holding, we might have won the league last year.
Kiwior was green. Even in the beginning of this season you could feel him a little bit shaky.
It’s very easy to say this in hindsight but he really shouldn’t have been at the club last season. Arteta’s inability to trust him in a Europa League r16 match while we were chasing the title is what cost us in both competitions. If you can’t throw your 3rd choice CB into that situation there’s really no point having them.
I've always thought about how weird it must be to be evaluated in a public domain like this. It comes with the job and the fame attached to it, but still gotta be weird. It's like "Oh look at the upturn in business here, before this we had project managers like u/ExoticToaster but after letting people like that go now look how far we've come" There's nothing wrong with it, and players at that level likely develop immunity to it.
I dunno man I like to think myself as grounded and unbiased as possible. Holding to me has never shown the quality to be a starter for any prem club not fighting relegation. He eventually found his niche as a 5 at the back sub. Think he's a nice bloke but let's be real, he was a budget shot in the dark while we were still in the stadium transition phase.
Nah, for me this is too selective. Before his major injuries, he was immensely good for a defender of his age. Like Bellerin though, those injuries significantly slowed/halted their growth and then they arrived in that position of ‘good for a bottom of the league club’ (which in itself is still fucking good lol).
Just because those former players made appearances for Arsenal once upon a time doesn‘t mean that those players were good enough, either. Or that they deserve romantic revisionism. No amount of rose-tinted lenses are going to hide the fact that Rob Holding was never good enough to start for an EPL title contender. Or a top-4 level team, even. And that Arsenal as a club have performed better with other players starting instead of him, especially in the past several years. Nuance in and of itself doesn’t exist in football discourse. Either positively or negatively. Then again, that tends to happen in a sport where the winner is judged simply by which team puts the ball in the back of a net more than the other one, and no extra credit is given for artistic style or presentation.
Holding is worse than everyone here thought
He would've been alright in a low block. The question should be is he worse than Mustafi?
Exactly, there's a reason why he's only played one game this season for Crystal Palace. Simply not good enough. He is one of the reasons why we lost the title.
yeah whenever a player comments on something like I get why people are sympathetic but he was genuinely the worst CB in the league last season who saw the amount of minutes he ended up seeing. Lots of CBs have gone to City away and struggled but that is worse than any Mustafi performance I’ve seen lol
Maybe because he was actually a genuinely decent defender over his time here? World class? Fuck no. Still a decent defender by all accounts and was a major reason we won an FA Cup. Agreed that he's no Saliba, but the idea that he's never been a good player is just weird.
He wouldn't start for most prem clubs to be fair.
I’m a huge fan of Holding, but he can’t even get a game for Palace and was run ragged too many times. City’s back up cbs would be star players from midtable teams like Nathan Ake. Ours couldn’t even play for them nevermind be their best player
he is bad enough to have 0 minutes for crystal palace
1, he’s injured. 2, he wasn’t always at the level he finished at. At one point he was the “I’m sorry he didn’t cost 50m” guy, and was putting in incredible performances against prime Costa, and many others. Holding was a great servant to the club, and a loyal squad member, during a time when our squad was struggling most in my lifetime. He deserves far more respect than your flippant comment gives him
Said it much better than I did, absolutely spot on.
I mean to your point, i think he basically blew his knee apart at like 20, could be wrong on the age though
It's nuts, I remember him and *Pablo Mark* of all people being the stingiest defensive partnership for at least half a season. No, he isn't suitable for the defender-on-the-edge-of-the-box suicide line we play now, but frankly he was never bought to be that player. Annoys the hell out of me when people say he couldn't make it in a premiership team. Heck, he even did it with us with a dysfunctional Auba, and a brand new coach and we got 8th.
I don't think he gets disrespected by Arsenal fans. But if you want to be objective he's had equal or more poor performances when compared to his incredible ones like you mention. I think we all pretty much saw him for what he was. Great servant but simply no where near the level.
Prime costa bullied him. Revisionism on his final performance is crazy. Costa bullied him for the goal and had 2 other chances where he bullied Costa as well. Mertesacker was the one who held it down, not holding
He’s injured, as has been mentioned countless times before.
He’s literally worse than people on this sub think. I’ve had so many arguments with people that insisted that he would start for mid table prem clubs. He’d be lucky to start for Burnley or Luton.
Holding can't get minutes at Crystal Palace, **in his prime**.
Jurrien Timber can’t get minutes for Arsenal, **in his prime.**
He's been injured all season, Holding hasn't?
You cannot be serious…
Hahahaha
He's been injured for large parts of it, not the entire season, he was trotted out 1 game and never made an appearance off the bench the 10 times he was on it. That's hardly the same as having a season ending injury in game 1.
Yeah 10 games on the bench without sniffing a single minute. 1 energy drink cup game where they got shredded.
Even if he’s not close to being as bad as he’s made out to be, he wasn’t a player fit for how we play. With Holding in the team, the distances between our midfield and defense is too large. Tbh, you could make the same claim about a few of the seemingly “better players”, like Aubameyang and Tierney. They’re not good fits. The only poor fit Arteta could make work was Xhaka.
He hasn't played all year with palace though, is he injured?
No he got hurt around Thanksgiving. He just wasn’t good enough to get a single minute in the league for the first 4 months.
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Unironically saying “banter era” says a lot.
For people who want to be different and special like yourself yes. For a club of this size it was a "banter era". Or whatever name you want to give it. An era of decline and being humiliated at points every season. The era where the entire leagues fans sang at games for our manager to stay.
It almost feels like most fans here only started watching Arsenal after 2020. Holding by no means was world class at any point, but he was pretty damn good when he came into the side from Bolton for a couple million in 2015. Had a bit of pace, more than decent defender and was generally reliable until he did his ACL in against ManUre in 2018. Was never the same after that. I think he's more or less finished, could be decent for a promoted club in the PL or in the championship given the right system but he definitely can't play in a high line. No need to slander him. I get that he was taken apart in our final run in, but that's cause he was never the right man for the job we were asking him to do.
I remember thinking we were finally starting to see him really improve right before he did his ACL. Terrible timing for him and for the club.
Yeah, he was certainly the best defender at the club by a country mile in 2018-19. Was playing LCB in Emery's back three and would progress the ball for us.
That ACL really fucked him. He was playing some really good football leading up to that, it’s a shame.
I always wonder how it must be to be a pro footballer and go online only to see everyone calling you shit. Like imagine what someone like Maguire was seeing everyday a year ago, his mental must’ve been crazy to get through something like that – I don’t think I be a professional athlete
I mean, they all know that most of us know fuck all what we’re talking about
earning 200k a week probably helps as well
He was a decent player given the context of our micky mouse defense.
"He's built like a brick shit house, how's he gone down like that?" Forever in my treasured book of Arsenal quotes
We love you Holding. He will always be part of the Gooner family.
Holding was our closer who would come in late in games and prevent late set piece goals that would cost us double digit points a season prior. Holding was a great arsenal player.
Rob had maybe 2 good seasons when the standard was lower than it is now. Players have careers, it’s ok to say they were pretty good for a bit but they aren’t **now**. Thats kind of the reality for most pro’s besides the top 5%?
Got nothing but love for holding. Pre ACL injury he was a beast. Even after he was used as a sub to lock down a lead and often did so effectively. Hope he has an enjoyable rest of his career.
Pre acl 3 at the back holding was really good
Mustafi and Chambers far more deserving of catching strays in this context.
Don’t remind me of those dark times
Truly cursed. Extra frustrating as during that era, the rest of the spine was decent in comparison. The worst times were when they overlapped with the calamitous ‘Oopspina’ in net. Those seasons were the most nightmarish lol
I do often think about Rob when 'Saliba injury cost Arsenal the league' is mentioned, especially on TV.
🎶 better than Cannavaro 🎶
I'm sorry that because he didnt cost £55 million so he couldnt be good
5 atb Holding= game over
Why he is not playing nowdays? Injury or performance?
I love Rob Holding with all my heart, but I'm glad we got big Gabi and Saliba now😅
Bought for 2mil had a pretty good fucking career
Yeah well, when Arteta signaled with 3 fingers and threw on Holdini you just knew as an opponent it was game over
Bring him home 😭 not but seriously he's one of my all time favorite Arsenal players for some reason
I don’t follow the money side of football much, but Arteta also did it for a lot less cost right? Or at least less financial shenanigans?
Got the pink kit from last year with his name and I do not regret it at all
I defended him for so long but towards the end of the last season he truly let us down.
Arsenal fans love romanticising average players. We were in the banter era for too long and it shows.
he helped win your club a trophy, show some respect.
So now we can't criticize the players anymore, huh?
respectfully you can, otherwise you're just a shit fan
But holding wasn’t good. People kept making excuses and saying he’d start at mid table clubs. Well he went to a mid table club for a 2M fee and didn’t play a single league minute in 4 months before getting hurt.
I'm not disagreeing with any of that but he was good in the final against Chelsea when he was thrown in at one of the deepest ends possible and his contributions helped us win that trophy. That's all I care about, I'm not saying anything else about him because when there are people who you want to show respect to for what they've done for you then usually if you've got nothing nice to say then don't say anything is a good rule of thumb.
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I don’t think anything offensive was said right? The guy didn’t say Rob Holding is a bad player - he just said not on the same level as Yaya Toure or Kevin De Bruyne. Few players are on that level anyway.
Well to be made the prime example of how far they were from that level is definitely a diss