Arsenal: Alex Iwobi over Jack Wilshere the right decision

Arsenal made the decision to replace Mesut Ozil, not with Jack Wilshere like most wanted, but with Alex Iwobi. And that was the right decision.

Arsenal made it four straight undefeated fixtures in the Premier League with their win over Brighton & Hove Albion and while the two goal scorers weren’t the names you would expect to be on the score sheet, that’s always a welcomed sign.

But the fact that Alex Iwobi scored has nothing to do with the point that I am going to make. Arsenal had what some saw as a fantastic opportunity to send Jack Wilshere out for his first Premier League start in quite some time.

With Mesut Ozil out, someone would be given the chance to step up and given how well Wilshere has been performing in the secondary competitions, it’s only natural that they wanted to see him out there against Brighton. Hell, I did too, but my better senses won out and I realized that it would be a foolish thing to do.

For one simple reason – it was a high, high risk and the reward was what? Sure, we get to see Wilshere out there and ideally he has himself a great performance, but at the end of the day, that’s all you really get from it. Meanwhile, what can you lose? Him. He just played 90 minutes in Belarus after returning from another lengthy injury.

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Playing him three days later just because you can is not a good motivational factor. Not at all. Not with so much to lose.

Wilshere’s time will come. Especially with Ozil falling farther and farther out of favor (I think, at least). We have an international break now for Wilshere to get his full fitness back up and when he returns, then we can start talking about how we can fit him into the starting XI.

Meanwhile, Alex Iwobi is 21. He’s young, promising, effective (minus his frequently flubbed shots) and he’s someone we all once thought so highly about. There should be just as much optimism for him being in the starting XI and getting a chance. Or at least not much less.

This was the right decision. Honestly, it was the only decision. Anything else would have been highly questionable and worthy of far more ridicule than what was chosen.

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Of course, the fact that he scored doesn’t hurt the argument. There is still plenty of room for improvement though.