Bacary Sagna

[Tom]

Tough tackling and physically strong French defender, new signing from Auxerre during the summer. Versatile player who usually plays as a right back but can also play as a left back, centre back or in the midfield. Sagna has made 38 appearances for the French under-21 national side and has recently been called up to the French senior squad for the first time. His reputation is growing fast and has become a key player in the defence for club and country.

[deity86]

Based over the last 2 seasons, Sagna has actually been the more attacking out of he and Clichy. It's one of the reasons his shite crossing gets noticed as he pushes on quite alot, though having him level with Eboue (who could probably be a touch higher to be honest) looks strange.

[WHUfan]

P11 - Cut Back Pass?

[nonobus]

Why Sagna and Clichy have RES:83, whereas most of the SB have 82 or under ? Moreover has Sagna enough showed that he has more(or as) offensive intelligence than Clichy, or Cissokho ?

[nonobus]

Same question as before.

[JuLiTo]

[Kookie545]

Id say add WB as a position

[Jez]

Response is probably too high yeah. Plus he never plays Wing Back for Arsenal as they never play a system which uses them. As far as I know neither do France so I wouldn't add it, unless the French have used them before and I've just never seen it..

[Phil]

I've never really thought he was this strong, he's got decent strength but he doesn't overpower players like Aguero, De jong, L. Diarra etc. do imo. It's not fair having him 3 points higher than Evra either. Other things, particularly aggression, seem wrong too.

[BigStu]

decreased res and bal and agg as suggested,

Could attack and defence not go down as well?

[jurgens]

both seem much too high for me, perhaps I'm a bit biased though, as he looks like a fucken moron, I can't help but hate him.

[Mr. Evans]

DEF can come down by point yeah and ATT by one or two points, probably two. He does join the attack but does he pick up good attacking positions or does he make good runs behind the defence? I don't think so.

[Tom]

I feel like we can make a few changes within this set.

First and foremost, I cannot agree to the current Header value. He simply does not have the same level of accuracy in his headers as Jagielka or Koscielny. Too often when he wins and aerial battle, he nods the ball on to an opposing player. This seems to be an inherent problem within the entire Arsenal back-line in all honesty, our defenders do not seem to logically consider where to head the ball. When it comes to aerial balls towards the box, they simply head it out to clear away rather than head to instigate a move. I do not know whether this is due to panic of the ball coming towards our box (Our back-line's mental state is shot to pieces and there seems to be disorder and a fear of conceding) or just a lack of thought, but it means that I cannot see our current back-line having overly high Header values - irrespective of how often they win their aerial duels. In this department, I'd reduce Sagna's Header value down to a 78.

I'm rather uncertain about his current Defence value. He's a full-back more than capable of channelling the opposing wide-man away from the action and into running the ball off of the pitch, and for this to happen in game, you have to enable a good Defence value. Similarly, his tackling is of a really good standard. He is able to contour his body well to win the ball. He is also very able at intercepting loose passes and although that is a big Response issue, it also requires being in the right position to win the ball.
However, is he really much better than Evra in this department? I would argue that he isn't. So should there be the current 6 point deficit between the two of them?
What is for certain is that his Aggression needs to be higher. Someone suggested that he needs the WB position, and although he doesn't play or need this position, the fact that he bombs forward with such regularity and to take up positions so far forward indicates that he can fool people into thinking that he's one. Again, I would draw a comparison to Patrice Evra in this area.
And by raising his Aggression higher, we will be able to see two traits:
1) Sagna will go forward much more when the team is in possession of the ball and will be a part of the attack more often than not
2) By giving him a high Aggression, it is also produces a scenario in which he can be caught too high up the pitch and thus out of position. As a result we will see the gaps that he infrequently (although it is rather rare) leaves (Case point, look at the 2nd goal of the Liverpool game on the weekend. Where was he?)

Another issue that needs to be raised is his Long Passing Accuracy. It may not be fun to say, but Sagna's crossing has definitely improved. More often than not, his crosses are weighted well and are not over-hit (the same cannot be said for Theo or Gibbs). I'm certainly not saying that he needs a drastic increase, but I think a 78 would be agreeable in this area.

I'm also under the impression that we can make some increases to Sagna's shooting stats. Although it was not often that he took a punt at goal, when he did it was surprisingly potent and accurate. He produced some cracking goals against Celtic and Everton last season (off the top of my head, think he may have scored another) that, for me at least, suggested that there shouldn't be quite this chasm between Sagna and Assou-Ekotto in this area.

I also feel like we can make some changes to his Balance, Tenacity and Team Work, if only by 1 point reductions. I feel the Balance is rather pertinent and I know that it has been the cause of much discussion. From his performances last season, I would not say that he had the level of hardiness and physical strength of, for example, Stephen Carr (who is currently very underrated on here in this department) or John Arne Riise. Again, I would put him at an Evra level in this department.

[tomaster]

Yes about aggression, who rated him 81? Someone is fucking blind here!

[Gugu]

Updated

[Da InvIncIblEs]

things have changed so much since he is back, just a splendid crosser

[Jez]

To be honest I never understood why people rate his crossing so poorly (I think I will have mentioned it previously in the thread). I've always felt he he gets great shape and bend on his crosses (current Curling rating is way too low in my opinion) whether they are deemed accurate or not

[BigStu]

its more been that he hasn't been able to show it in the past due to the teams style I;ve always thought of him as good crosser though

[Alexalibur]

Will miss the Euros with a broken leg. Very, very unlucky.

[tomaster]

Will miss the Euros with a broken leg. Very, very unlucky.

Omg no, he gave so much quality to Arsenal since came back from injury, feel so sorry for this guy.

[CR7]

Fractured patella, no? That's what (I think) Wenger said it was.