Arsenal: Reaction To Per Mertesacker Must Be Swift

Arsenal have been struggling lately and that was exemplified by Per Mertesacker’s bumbling red card to cost Arsenal the Chelsea match. They must act quickly and decisively.

Here’s the thing. We can’t blow Per Mertesacker’s red card out of proportion by demanding he be tarred, feathered and run out of North London. We can realize that this is the culmination of a string of bad performances and demand that Arsene Wenger make changes. After all, after New Years last season, Wenger put Nacho Monreal in charge of left back, and he has not let up since.

The red card, which, despite whether or not we think/know what Diego Costa did, exemplified everything we have ever known to be wrong with Per Mertesacker. Namely his pace. The big German’s strengths have always been in his positioning and intelligence, which we cannot take away from him.

However, in this instance, neither one of his strengths was able to compensate for his brutal, glaring, lifelong weakness. Mertesacker is slow and in his advancing age, that lack of pace is starting to haunt him more and more. This year has not been a good year for Mertesacker and it’s starting to feel like Wenger is continuing to give him the run out based on a sense of loyalty. Wenger has identified Mertesacker as a leader in the dressing room and that undoubtedly contributes as well.

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Mertesacker has had a good run at Arsenal. His partnership with Laurent Koscielny has long been seen as one of the best centerback pairings out there. They even put together a stretch of 39 unbeaten home games when the two started together.

But we cannot keep living in the past. Not if we want to move forward. Per Mertesacker is not equipped to be a centerpiece of this Arsenal defense. Again, this is not a knee-jerk reaction to his red card. That red card was the exclamation point at the end of this claim.

Statistically, Mertesacker is not having a good year. All thing considered, it is his worst statistical year since 2012/13. He is not going to get any better and for the sake of this club moving forward, they need to have a more steady defender holding down the center of the line.

Luckily for Arsenal, that steadier defender is already here, and it is Gabriel Paulista. Just like the red card was the culmination of a slow degrade for Mertesacker, Gabriel’s substitute performance was culmination of a series of high-quality performances that prove that the right man for the job is right in front of us.

Arsenal’s Reaction To Per Mertesacker Must Be Swift

By Josh Sippie | Jan 25, 2016

Arsenal have been struggling lately and that was exemplified by Per Mertesacker’s bumbling red card to cost Arsenal the Chelsea match. They must act quickly and decisively.

More from Pain in the Arsenal