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Nacho Monreal Faces Biggest Test Of Arsenal Career
By Josh Sippie
Few Arsenal players have jumped out of the shadows and established themselves as a main, protagonist character quite like Nacho Monreal. The Spanish left back was brought on for around £8.3 million to be a fail-safe for Kieran Gibbs, whose continual potential was still not panning out. But Monreal turned out to be so much more.
After several years of living in the background, Nacho was given his prolonged chance when Kieran Gibbs was benched following the New Years debacle. Since that moment, Nacho Monreal has not turned back. He has become one of the best left backs in the game today.
A lot of the success he has in defending comes from his time spent at center back. Arsene Wenger has this habit of playing guys out of a position with the intention of moving them back to their original spot. It usually works out and Nacho Monreal is the poster child of how it can work out. He plays left back with the intelligence of a center back. That is such a valuable weapon. Especially in an age where there are not that many prolific full backs out there.
Related: What Pokemon Would Nacho Monreal Be?
Next up on Nacho Monreal’s plate is the biggest test of his Arsenal career. He handled Bayern Munich just fine in the first round, but this time he will be face to face with Arjen Robben.
In the last bout with Bayern, the German giants targeted Hector Bellerin. They intended to use Douglas Costa to wind Bellerin into the ground and expose his inexperience. It did not work. The young Arsenal right back held strong and looked absolutely stoic.
Bayern Munich is not going to try the same thing again. Especially now that they have another place to launch their attacks from.
With Arjen Robben returning, Bayern Munich will aim to go through him and target Nacho Monreal. Since attacking the right back did not work, it only makes sense that they will go down the left back this time around.
It will be up to Nacho Monreal to halt that plan like his fullback mate Bellerin did last time out.
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Arjen Robben is an intimidating figure. He has been one of the best in the world for years. In his last 188 appearances for Bayern Munich, he has netted 96 times and added 48 assists (via WhoScored). The Dutch winger is one of those special players out there that often appears unstoppable.
It is going to be a much bigger task than Bellerin faced, but Nacho will have to step up and deal with it. The Spaniard was not that impressive early on against Swansea, but he did gather himself late on. Robben is not going to miss out on opportunities like Swansea did. He is going to force feed Arsenal their own mistakes, if they make them.
And that is why Nacho Monreal cannot make any mistakes.
The left back has put up some very impressive numbers of his own this season. He is averaging three tackles and three interceptions a game and as such, is in talks to sign a new contract with Arsenal. One way to make that deal a bit more enticing to Arsenal is to shut down the focal point of the Bayern attack.