Arsenal: If Rob Holding needed a golden ticket, maybe that did it

Arsenal nation was enamored by Rob Holding’s emergence last season, but things have changed. Perhaps the Belarusian goal was his ticket back.

Arsenal’s win over BATE Borisov was exciting to watch. There were so many story lines to follow and the match itself proved to be of high quality, as it tends to be when the Gunners plant four goals on their opponents.

Olivier Giroud scored his 100th goal, Theo Walcott was determined to win the game all on his own and Jack Wilshere was the play-caller, dictating the flow of the game and having another massive impact on his return journey.

But there was also another pretty cool thing. Rob Holding scored his first Arsenal goal and, while I wonder if he knew anything about it, his reaction told it all. The lad was thrilled. I thought he was going to take flight and ascend into heaven right then and there.

Which is obviously a good thing. Holding had massively fallen from grace this year, a year that was supposed to be his big proclamation to the world that he was a serious, Premier League caliber defender.

It had been anything but. He had looked nothing short of terrible to start the season, the exact opposite of how strong he looked filling in for Shkodran Mustafi at the end of last season. Even at the U23 level he looked shaky.

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All Arsene Wenger kept saying was that the young Englishman needed one thing and one thing only – confidence. Get Holding confidence and he will be back.

Well, maybe scoring a goal can be Holding’s golden ticket back to the confidence factory. It sure works wonders on guys like Olivier Giroud, who can get so buried in the pressure to score that once they finally do, it’s like a release.

That goal was clearly thrilling for him and while his play certainly isn’t predicated on an ability to score, it is still a massive lift. It showed in his spot start against Brighton & Hove Albion. There wasn’t much liability with Holding back there.

Now, while none of this necessarily means that Holding is in the starting XI to stay, but it’s a step in the right direction.

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Regardless, he’s young and there is still time to develop him into being the defender that we saw at the close of last season, just with more consistency and less possibility of complete and utter collapse.

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