If we were to bring in Yann M’Vila, I struggle to think of the role Song would fit in. Is he a better playmaker than Wilshere? No. Is he better at linking up midfield than Arteta? No. Is he a better holding midfielder who keeps things simple than M’Vila? No. I am sincerely struggling to see why we would sign M’Vila. Sure, we could vary our options with him, but would any of the aforementioned players have any interest in being a backup? And this without the OX, Rosicky, Ramsey and Coquelin thrown in the mix. Naturally, I want us to sign

As a historian, you find yourself seeing similarities everywhere. Recently I realised there was quite a bit of common ground between Alexandre Song and history’s most famous Alex, Alexander the Great. In this article, I shall (slightly) expand on that, and explain why, like the Great Alex, our Alex deserves the plaudits he has gotten. I will do so hopefully without going too Stephen Fry on your Alan Davies’ asses.

Onto those similarities. Both of them were mentored and taught by some of the greatest thinkers in human history, namely Aristotle and Arsene Wenger. Both of them are fantastic generals, one of them on the battlefield and the other of midfield. Both have swashbuckling styles of being that general, Alexander leading his men out himself and risking his own life and Alexandre with his all-action, at times highly technical style of play. Both emerged from the shadows of family members who were very famous and powerful in their own right, his father Philip for Alexander and uncle Rigobert for Alexandre. Both ended up usurping those family members and becoming better and more famous than them. Both had a love for looking ‘good’, with a lot of bling and their own sense of style. In fact, and this is very high levels of nerdiness, the helmet Alex the Great wore rather resembles the broad, coloured Mohawk Song had during parts of this season. Both had the ability to combine great feats with embarrassing lows, led by their tempers or their ability to make mistakes. Both had the feeling of being slightly too big for their boots, but redeemed themselves with inspiring moments. Both men had a lot of fans and followers, yet equally many detractors and even enemies. And if some twitterandi are to be believed, Song too has that trait of wanting a lot of money for his abilities.

The point I am making (apart from teaching you all about history and history repeating itself) is that there is a huge historical debate about Alexander the Great which can be summed up by a question, which is also the title of this article. ‘How great was Alexander?’. In fact, amongst classicists, it is the main question and still something you can get university degrees on. This exact same question, but far more important to all of you, can be asked about Alex Song. You see, Song really divides opinions. Now, as a historian, to me, Alexander the Great earned his nickname despite some of the things that weren’t so great. I also feel that Alex Song is an absolutely class player and I want to try and explain why.

Now I am not Michael Cox, so I am not armed with graphs, chalkboards and numbers and facts (well, a few). Nor am I gonna give the whole history of how Alex Song came through the ranks and the hard work etc. But I have the power of rhetoric and I am also a very keen fanboy. So, onto Alex Song. He is not a great defensive midfielder. Nor am I convinced that if we sign Yann M’Vila, will he step into the creative midfield role, nor the linkup role of Mikel Arteta. He lacks the discipline for the DM role, the technique, vision and nippy agility for the creative role, and lacks the discipline and consistency of passing to be Arteta. He is the quintessential box-to-box midfielder, exactly like Patrick Vieira was. He may still lack the ability to dictate matches that Vieira had, he may not dominate the centre of midfield quite like Vieira did, but in terms of the amount of assists (for those, see the amazing clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYRcAMt8ixc by the great @CWDComps) and more importantly, moments where he wins the ball and then manages to continue the move, he is up there with the elite midfielders of European football. Who in the Premier League can do what he does? Michael Essien back when he was good, indeed. Lucas Leiva, if he gets fit again, might, although he lacks the midfield dominance. Yaya Toure is far better than Song, but apart from being older and us all knowing that at Song’s age he was not nearly as good as Song,  but he takes more liberty knowing that people like Kompany are there to mop up for him.

That brings me onto criticism of Song for our defensive record. In most matches, Song and Arteta and often also Ramsey/Rosicky spend roughly the same amount of time in the most defensive position  of the midfield three. Yet I rarely hear them slated for their contribution in our defensive record, unless they blatantly cause it. That is also because this season our defensive record is highly slanted by matches like vs Man U, AC Milan, Blackburn, Chelsea and the periods without fullbacks and with an injured Sir-Chesney. Overall, with Koscielny in the side and with the FB’s, we were not bad at all, and the ability Alex Song has to switch from offence to defence contributes a lot to that. He is not a shield for the defence, not even slightly, and in my humble opinion he deserves a medal for how much he contributes to the attack whilst still making a lot of wonderful challenges and interceptions in the defensive areas. Besides, we conceded more own goals than pretty much any team, a lot of deflected shots, a couple of penalties that were dives, a glorious free kick or two and also one or two mistakes by our amusing Polish goalkeeper. That warps the image of our real defensive record.

If we were to bring in Yann M’Vila, I struggle to think of the role Song would fit in. Is he a better playmaker than Wilshere? No. Is he better at linking up midfield than Arteta? No. Is he a better holding midfielder who keeps things simple than M’Vila? No. I am sincerely struggling to see why we would sign M’Vila. Sure, we could vary our options with him, but would any of the aforementioned players have any interest in being a backup? And this without the OX, Rosicky, Ramsey and Coquelin thrown in the mix. Naturally, I want us to sign M’Vila, but he might just throw us in a rather nasty imbalance. Our midfield is very strong and if we want to play either Arteta or Song, both of whom are in my top 5 players of the year, than there is no way M’Vila would fit in.

Song does remain a bit of an enigma. In the dressing room, he always seemed to stray away from the French-African clique and mingled much more with the Europeans. Hence his unusual clothing style. He doesn’t play like a real holding midfielder and instead he plays in a position that has become rather obsolete in modern football, because of the danger of the box-to-box midfielder being caught too far upfield. So the question might be, should we sell Song? If he does actually have wage demands of 130k per week, and if we can actually get Yann M’Vila, maybe. But I love me some Alex Song. He is the perfect answer to those footballing purists who believe a player should have a clearly defined role. To me, being Dutch, that has no role in football, the specialist, apart from strikers and defenders. In midfield everything should be possible. And whilst our Alex is not an Xavi or Iniesta or (yet) a Yaya Touré, he genuinely (to me) belongs to the best allround midfielders in the world.

Historians with an agenda look down on Alexander the Great. After World War II they called him a dictator, hoping to deflect attention from that guy in Germany. When the British Empire fell, they portrayed him as the first empire trying to control all people. With Alex
Song, people call him a holding midfielder. They call him a slow, average player with a small brain (ok, they may be right on that. Most interviews player to player describe him as the thickest, together with Frimpong) whose forays forward only end up costing Arsenal. Me, I’m not one of them. And I would be very sad if we had to let him go or couldn’t figure a way to fit him in the squad, especially considering how hard he worked, and how much time it took him, to get there.

Guest Post: by Martijn Stolze