Arsenal: Nacho Monreal injury offers opportunity to revert to tradition

Nacho Monreal hobbled off during the 3-3 draw with Liverpool on Friday night. His injury offers Arsenal the opportunity to revert back to a traditional centre-half partnership with Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny.

Arsene Wenger has almost exclusively played with a back-four. Before he implemented the back-three system in the closing stages of last season, in 21 years of management in North London, he had played it just once before, in 1996. Every other game involved a back-four. That is Wenger’s unquestioned bread and butter.

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And this season, despite starting the year with a back-three, Wenger still admitted that his preferred shape was a back-four based one. That shows his loyalty to the system. In recent weeks, he has reverted back to the back-four, even without one of his starting centre-halves.

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Shkodran Mustafi hobbled off against Manchester United in only the 11th minute. He has not started a game since. Nevertheless, even by having to crowbar Nacho Monreal into what is clearly an unnatural centre-half role, Wenger has persisted with the back-four in every game between that loss and now.

But, in a reverse of roles, Monreal is now the one who is set to miss some time. The Spaniard had to come off at half-time against Liverpool on Friday night and is expected to miss Thursday night’s trip to Crystal Palace. It was Mustafi who came back into the team for Monreal against Liverpool; it’s safe to assume that the German will again take his place. And that offers Wenger the perfect opportunity to revert to the same centre-half partnership as last season.

For much of the year, Wenger paired Mustafi with Laurent Koscielny. On paper, it is Arsenal’s most suitable and best partnership. Experienced, intelligent, athletic and versatile defenders, both Mustafi and Koscielny should work well together. And, although there were some clear hiccups, there were many examples of when they did exactly that.

Perhaps crucially, though, is that their most natural position is centre-half. Monreal is a full-back who has the positional intelligence and game-reading to play at centre-half. But he is not a centre-half by trade, and there are key moments where it is painfully obvious.

His injury provides Wenger to return to what he knows best and trusts most: the anchoring of the team with two experienced and established defenders. It is never nice to see players injured, and given the character and communication of Monreal, as well as his positional versatility, he will be missed.

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But if it allows Wenger to reinstate Mustafi and Koscielny at the heart of the defence, then it could serve the season well. They are the defensive direction that Arsenal should take for the remainder of the year.