Arsenal: Why Arsene Wenger may yet avoid a defensive midfielder

Arsenal fans have cried out for a defensive midfielder for years, but it’s quite possible that Arsene Wenger will find his way around signing one yet.

It’s been made perfectly clear time and time again, Arsene Wenger simply does not want a strictly-defensive midfielder at Arsenal. It was when Grzegorz Krychowiak was linked with the Gunners that this bit of information first came out.

Of course, N’Golo Kante’s link to the Emirates changed things, but in the long run, the fact remained that barring an incredibly special talent, Wenger just didn’t see the need for one.

This summer, many expect Wenger to buck this belief and really go after a position that is clearly lacking. However, I’m coming to believe that he may still avoid it, given what he has done this season.

What exactly has he done? Well, he has been exploring creative ways to avoid wasting an entire position on a ball-winning midfielder. He sold Francis Coquelin, the only of such midfield-type on the club. That was the first sign.

The next was his experiments with what I called the “DM floater” role that Mohamed Elneny and even Shkodran Mustafi played. Utilizing the back three, Wenger would let the central-most defender push forward into the midfield when necessary, so long as they dropped back into the defensive line when it was time to defend.

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Even now, with the back four the defacto defense yet again, there is a clear freedom granted to the two centerbacks to take up forward positions, go aggressively into the midfield and establish a presence not just in a defensive position.

This is helped on by the future of this defense being at the feet of Shkodran Mustafi and Calum Chambers, two players who are terrific on the ball and will take every chance they can to push up into the midfield and do, essentially, what a defensive midfielder would do.

Generally speaking, their distribution from that deeper midfield position has been spot on as well, which puts them a step above Coquelin.

All of these combined make me wonder if Wenger even sees the need for a defensive midfielder. After all, if his centerbacks can do the job, then why waste the position?

Or, at the very least, if he does go for a Wilfred Ndidi or someone similarly young and malleable, I wouldn’t place a lot of hope in them being a steady presence on the team, but more a project, to see if Wenger can turn a ball-winner into something more, like he was unable to do with Coquelin.

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Honestly, at this point, I don’t see the need as much as I once did either. The Granit Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere midfield proved to be a force and building around that seems more practical than uprooting the midfield scheme to accommodate a ball-winner.