People seem to think that Coates is some inexperienced, weak minded player. He's a 2 time league winning player with Nacional, he won the Copa America with Uruguay, picking up best young player in the process. He has nearly 70 professional games and he has already shown that he has a great mentality by overcoming an absolute stinker against Stoke, into a great performance in the second half which, ironically enough, coincided with Carragher leaving the pitch.
Forget history, I may not have seen enough of Coates to claim that he's guaranteed to step up to the plate against Arsenal. But I've seen enough to think he warrants a fair shot at it, and I've seen enough of Carragher that I don't think he should be anywhere near the starting line-up. He slows down play, is terrible on the ball for a professional footballer, drags us deep onto the pitch and doesn't offer up an attacking threat in set pieces. And even if Coates makes mistakes, and I'm sure he will, worst case scenario it's a learning curve. Like we know he won't let a loose ball bounce like he did with Walters. If Carra does it, he won't take anything away from it. If they both start and make 3 mistakes leading to goals, at least 2-3 years down the line we can look back at that with Coates. Carra has already peaked and playing him is only delaying the inevitable