Arsenal: In Appreciation Of Hector Bellerin

Arsenal have a great thing going in their full back situation. Sometimes we just need to take a moment to appreciate that Hector Bellerin is special.

Aside from being incredibly pro-Wenger in my writings lately, I have also taken on one of two moods – obscenely hopeful or incredibly negative. So let’s take a bit of a left turn and just appreciate what Hector Bellerin has done this year.

The lad is a full back. A 21 year old full back. He plays in the toughest league in the world against the toughest players in the world and he does it on a team that falls short every single year. Yet there is nothing about Hector Bellerin that falls short. As a converted winger, the only thing Bellerin lacks is a little fine-tuning. Offensively and defensively, he is superb and it is no wonder that he was chosen on the PFA Team of the Year.

Let’s start on the offensive side. Bellerin has four assists on the year. That is tied with Alexis Sanchez, Olivier Giroud and Aaron Ramsey, AKA, three of the four main pieces of this Arsenal attack. It is also twice as many as Walcott and the Ox comibed. He loses possession at a fraction of the rate that Giroud, Alexis and Ramsey do as well.

When it comes to dribbling, we see him ranking far higher up on the Arsenal list than a defender traditionally should be. Bellerin ranks third on the list behind only Alexis and Santi Cazorla. That means that our speedy little fullback completes more dribbles a game than Ozil, Ramsey, Iwobi, Walcott, Welbeck and the whole Gunner crew.

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And he isn’t a fleeting fancy. The only Arsenal man that has played more minutes than Hector Bellerin this year is his fullback mate, Nacho Monreal, who beat him out by a whole eight minutes.

Defensively, he does exactly what you’d want him to do. He only fouls on average once every two games, less than every other defender except (surprise!) Gabriel Paulista. In terms of hard stats, he averages right at two interceptions and two tackles per match, just under what his fullback mate completes.

However, stats don’t say enough. What makes Bellerin so special is that blazing speed that he utilizes far more usefully than Theo Walcott. Bellerin has been seeing blazing past Bayern Munich on his way to creating a goal. But that blazing goes both ways. Bellerin get’s forward a lot, so it is a necessity that he can recover, which he absolutely can.

Then there is the loyalty aspect. Naturally, the fear is that Bellerin will leave Arsenal to go back to his childhood club of Barcelona. However, every time a whisper of such nonsense permeates into the air, Bellerin shoots it down immediately, leaving no time for it to linger. He is incredibly outspoken about his desire to stay at Arsenal for a very long time.

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There are very few things Bellerin cannot do, and for that, he deserves a round of applause, which I trust you will give him after reading this sentence.

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