Arsenal: Sead Kolasinac offers tactical and formational unknown

Sead Kolasinac is being heavily linked with a move to Arsenal. With his attacking skills, he offers a tactical and formational unknown to Arsene Wenger.

With his Arsenal side reeling from yet another dismantling loss at the hands of a middling to lesser Premier League side, Arsene Wenger made the rather drastic, and uncharacteristic, decision to overhaul his tactics and implement a whole new system that, while bringing success to domestic rivals, was one that seemingly challenged everything that Wenger holds dear.

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The free-flowing moves had given way for the pragmatic and the practical; bombarding full-backs were replaced with steely centre-halves; defensive shackles were lifted from those who could not handle the load, and braced by the system that put the clean sheet first.

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It is an approach that is wholly contrary to Wenger’s usual principles. Not in 20 years has he played with a back five. But now, having persisted with the 3-4-3 formation that was such a sweeping change when first introduced, with the summer fast approaching and the hope and anticipation that change, investment and the new are set to arrive, there is a question of whether Wenger’s tactical alterations are merely a quick fix, a short-term distraction from an increasingly despairing run of form, or a long-term advancement in the set-up of his team.

The major tell as to whether Wenger will continue to implement this strange and peculiar formation will be with who he chooses to pursue in the transfer market and how they may fit into a possible line-up. Unfortunately, the man who is likely to be Arsenal’s first signing of the summer reveals very little.

The latest reports suggest that Arsenal are inching closer to confirming the addition of Schalke full-back of Sead Kolasinac on a free transfer. The roaming left-back has been a target of Wenger’s for some time, with Nacho Monreal failing to offer the same consistent reliability of last year, and Kieran Gibbs’ potential yet to come to the fore, and now looking as though it never will.

But Kolasinac, very much like Hector Bellerin on the opposite flank, is a full-back built out of attacking motives. While he is dependable defensively, especially in one-on-one situations, with good athleticism and enough speed to deal with the myriad of pacy, direct wingers that modern football has to offer, it is his attacking threat that makes him such an enticing and intriguing option.

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In the 3-4-3 system, though, such an attacking full-back has the versatility to play in a wing-back role. If Wenger in pondering the possibility of continuing with this new-found approach, then the potential addition of Kolasinac only offers further tactical and formational unknown.