Arsenal: Bail on Calum Chambers at your own risk

Arsenal suffered a horrific, yet irrelevant, loss to Ostersunds FK, with Calum Chambers a chief offender, but to bail now is crazy talk.

So Arsenal had a job to do and they did it. It was ugly, piss-poor and probably one of the worst things we’ve ever seen and the result isn’t something we want on the ‘permanent record’ but it’s behind us now and we can move on to the next question.

But for a brief moment, I need to address what is always going to be a problem with every fan base in the world – the impulsive hate-mongering.

Anytime there is a crap performance, people start dropping the ‘just sell him, we never liked him’ comments, which are obviously made in the heat of the moment and shouldn’t be taken too literally, but for the sake of a player we should all have immense faith in – Calum Chambers.

Chambers wasn’t too hot on the pitch. He was directly involved in sacrificing both goals, most notably the own goal. There was undoubtedly a good deal of damage done to the confidence of the 23-year-old defender, but that segways into my next point.

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Which is simply that he is a 23-year-old defender. Even impulsive, heat-of-the-moment comments indicating that he should be sold, or that we should have sold him long ago because he doesn’t have any value, well, those kind of comments short-sighted and stupid. If we sold young players, even at Chambers level, because of 90 minutes, you’d be left without a team.

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I can’t believe that I’m here having to say this but, uh, Chambers is a quality defender that has an incredible future ahead of him. That £20m+ valuation that Wenger stuck on him in the summer? Yeah, he stuck that on him for a reason. And 90 minutes of poor (and inconsequential) play isn’t going to undo that just because a handful of fans want instant gratification.

Did these same people ask for Ainsley Maitland-Niles to be sold after his horror-show against Bournemouth? Probably not, because they were too busy with their hate-parade dedicated to Granit Xhaka.

You can rest assured that Chambers is going to become a hotshot defender and if he is going to suffer through growing pains that make him better and stronger then best to do them in games where nothing is at stake. And you can bet that Chambers is going to learn from this and grow from this.

Next: Arsenal vs Ostersunds FK Player Ratings

You know why? Because he is an intelligent defender with a footballing brain and a ton of talent. Ignore that at your own peril.

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