Arsenal: Per Mertesacker needs to don the Chelsea cape again

Arsenal’s defense is going to face on hell of a stiff test over the next couple of weeks, so is it too much to ask that Per Mertesacker become a superhero again?

Arsenal will be without Shkodran Mustafi for at least a month and with Laurent Koscielny and Calum Chambers in a state of silent limbo, the options are getting thinner and thinner. But the one option that is, to me at least, the most enticing is Per Mertesacker.

The guy had not started a match all year when he was forced to start against Chelsea in the FA Cup final. It was one of the most heroic defensive performances I have seen in ages and it came out of literally nowhere.

Mertesacker was ruled irrelevant. He sat on the bench and guided young players in their development but the thought of his slow self back in the battle lines was terrifying.

Arsene Wenger even remarked about how much effort the big German put into that match. As if he channeled an entire season of ability into one match.

Since then, Mertesacker has been a bit more, well, average. Which isn’t the worst thing ever, it’s impossible to follow up a performance like that, especially on a consistent basis.

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That said, with so much trepidation over the current state of the defense, is it too much to ask that Mertesacker don the cape and become his superhero self again, like the one we saw against Chelsea? Even if it’s just for a month.

This defense, more than anything else, needs a leader. Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi are the clearest leaders and without them, the club will be on the struggle bus trying to not only stay at the top of their individual game, but to stay coordinated as a unit as well.

That’s where Mertesacker’s heroics can come into the picture again. Even if he can’t achieve the level of physical play that he achieved against Chelsea in that out-of-body performance, he can lead the mental charge and be the lighthouse that ensures that his colleagues are where they need to be and confident in their own play.

These won’t be easy matches. And they will be made all the more difficult by how close they all are together. It will be even harder for someone like Mertesacker, who is past his prime. He will be called upon frequently.

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But even if his body may ache, his mind has to lead the charge. I was once told that all athletics are 90% mental. So much of what is required comes from the body, but everything starts in the body’s control tower in the brain. That’s where Mertesacker can be heroic yet again.

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