Arsenal Vs Stoke City: A glimpse at centre-half future

Calum Chambers started his second successive Premier League game on Sunday against Stoke City. Did we get a glimpse at the future of the centre-half position?

It was a very strange first half for Arsenal on Sunday afternoon. While they proceeded to run out comfortable 3-0 victors over relegation-straggling Stoke City, the first 45 minutes was hardly a consummate and confident performance. Although Stoke didn’t threaten all that much, bar a whipped Xherdan Shaqiri effort early on, chances are the other end were not exactly free-flowing.

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In particular, it was the Gunners’ play in possession that was so troubling. Not only was it lethargic, ponderous and slow, lacking the necessary fizz and zip to carve through the Stoke ranks, but it was also extremely sloppy and wayward, losing the ball cheaply and in dangerous areas time and time again.

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It was odd. For once, it was not Arsenal’s play out of possession that was troubling. In fact, they defended very well for large parts of the game. It was their play in possession. That heaped the pressure on Shkodran Mustafi and Calum Chambers, the two centre-halves on the day. Some of that pressure, admittedly, was self-inflicted, especially from Mustafi, with several misguided, in mind and execution, passes into the midfield intercepted. But from a purely defensive standpoint, both were very good indeed.

With Laurent Koscielny now 32 and increasingly suffering the effects of a career plagued by consistent injury, especially to his Achilles and back, there is a growing need for a succession plan to be put in place. Many, myself included, assumed this would come in the form of recruitment in this summer transfer window. But is it possible that we got a glimpse of the future of Arsenal’s centre-half position on Sunday?

It is fair to say that Mustafi will be at the heart of it. While he has his faults, Arsene Wenger likes him and he is still only 25 — he turns 26 in a little over two weeks — with time and room to grow. The question rests on whether Chambers is ready to partner him for the long-term. The answer might just be a yes.

He has shown on a growing number of occasions that he has now allied his calmness and composure in possession with a defensive acumen and understanding that provides a stability and security in the defensive ranks. He has always had all the physical and technical capabilities to develop into a top-class centre-half. The drawbacks have been on the mental side of the game. His positioning, his rash, naive decision-making, his inconsistencies in form and confidence.

But as time has passed, he has aged, and experience has come, so have the developments of his understanding. He is far more reserved and cautious in his choices. He reads the game far better. He is caught out of position, found scrambling to recover, far less often than he used to be, and he is beginning to blossom into a rounded and accomplished centre-half.

Next: Arsenal Vs Stoke City: Player ratings

Would I be confident if Arsenal decided to roll onto next year with Mustafi and Chambers as their starting centre-half pairing? Absolutely not. But in the quest to develop and bleed young players, there comes a point where the jump must be taken. That jump, for Chambers, I believe, has now arrived.