Arsenal: Sead Kolasinac may find fortune yet this season

Arsenal looked to be all set at leftback when they brought Sead Kolasinac in, but things have since gotten a bit murky. That can still turn around before season’s end.

Of all the underperformers against CSKA Moscow in the second leg, no one disappointed me more (except Alex Iwobi in his brief failure) than Nacho Monreal. Arsenal found so much joy on the flanks in the first leg that seeing Monreal torched time and time again was made even more frustrating.

It was a game that, honestly, needed Sead Kolasinac instead of Monreal. There was no way for us to know that at the time, as hindsight is 20/20, but looking back, I can say that Kolasinac would not have made those mistakes.

I say that with confidence because the mistakes that Monreal made were mistakes of lacking strength and speed. These are two things that Kolasinac has in abundance and two things that he can even use too much.

The reason Monreal has won over the starting job is because he has proven to be far more consistent than his Bosnian counterpart. And his random goal streak certainly helped. But he was massively helped on by Kolasinac’s own failures.

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You can’t get very far in football, or in life in general, if the person ahead/above/blocking you doesn’t give you some sort of window of opportunity. Unless you’re just downright exceptional, which Kolasinac isn’t (not yet, anyway).

That said, thanks to the way this season is shaping up, we have the opportunity to pit the two against each other week after week between the Premier League and the Europa League. Not much is going to change between now and the end of the year, but don’t even pretend like these two aren’t auditioning for the starting role come next season. And with equal opportunity for both, it’s any man’s game to win.

Monreal showed Kolasinac his first opening in quite some time. He was outdone in some key areas against Moscow, key areas that Kolasinac excels in. With Kolasinac gearing up for Newcastle on Sunday, you can bet that he understands that.

And for Kolasinac, it’s been more about health this year than anything. So long as he has been healthy and had time to settle, he’s been superb. It’s just a matter of rust and lacking fitness that has held him back.

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Well, he’s been back for awhile now, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some token Kolasinac at St. James.

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