Arsenal: Konstantinos Mavropanos doesn’t need to be a solution

Arsenal have supposedly tied up a permanent deal for young Greek centerback Konstantinos Mavropanos. Which is exciting and pressure free.

Arsenal’s January transfer window is officially underway. How can we tell? Because while Liverpool have landed Virgil van Dijk for a world-record fee for a defender, the Gunners have supposedly landed 20 year old Greek centerback Konstantinos Mavropanos.

The age-old adage of Arsene Wenger searching for salvation at the feet of 20-year old unknowns holds true yet again.

Facetiousness aside, there is nothing wrong with this move. In fact, it is actually preferable, long term, to overspending on a defender with motivation problems. And yes, I mean exactly what I inferred there, that I’m perfectly happy with lining up another highly-touted defender in favor of busting up this defense as is.

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Why? Because our defense has two young men, Rob Holding and Calum Chambers, who are ticketed to success in the Premier League. Both have already had success in the Premier League and are only getting better.

Then there is Shkodran Mustafi, who is one of the budding, best defenders in the whole of England.

The problem with this defense isn’t the lack of options and youth and talent, the problem is Wenger’s insistence on sticking with a constantly-in-pain Laurent Koscielny and a leftback.

So what does this have to do with the Greek defender with an eight syllable name? Well, if you recall, when we signed Rob Holding from Bolton at the tender age of 21, he rose to the Premier League level incredibly quickly.

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But we don’t even have to bank on that happening for the young Greek, because we already have those two aforementioned Englishman as well as Krystian Bielik, who, injury problems aside, is shooting up the ranks pretty damn quickly.

So what we are looking at here is a near future of Chambers, Holding and Mustafi as the defenders of choice, and likely an investment or two if necessary.

And, in the far future (but not all that far), Mavropanos and Bielik.

While nothing is a guarantee with youth, this future of the defense is composed of three under 25 central defenders, all of whom have shown tremendous ability, and two under 20 defenders who are highly touted and versatile.

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Of course, this is all assuming that the reports from SkySports are true. There is never anything wrong with investing in the future of the club. Holding showed us how quickly those investments can pay dividends and there will no doubt be more arrivals in the years to come.