Arsenal: Sead Kolasinac is owed an explanation or two

Arsenal experimented against Newcastle United, which isn’t a bad thing, but Sead Kolasinac is owed an explanation as to why such decisions were made.

Arsenal’s loss against Newcastle United isn’t the end of the world. It was a bit of a bummer, because losing always is, and the less than flattering distinctions that come from not yet having accrued a single point this calendar year.

But overall, Arsene Wenger experimented with his squad in what was a meaningless match, no matter how it turned out.

It wasn’t that he experimented that was the problem, it was the manner in which he did it. Calum Chambers at rightback, for instance, is completely nonsensical, because that is experimentation that doesn’t need to happen.

What also doesn’t need to happen is Nacho Monreal being used at leftback. He had his month or two in absolute immortality, when he was scoring goals and doing everything we never expect him to do, but Monreal is a known commodity. No matter the circumstance, we pretty much always know what we are going to get out of him.

Unless, of course, he has a massive collapse, as he has had in the past two matches, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about why he was given the nod ahead of Sead Kolasinac.

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The Bosnian has only just started getting back into a good run of form and he was doing that by being the primary leftback in the Premier League, which, as noted, is meaningless at this point.

Kolasinac is – or rather should be – a massive priority, given the potential that is there, the same potential he showed us at the beginning of the year. Now he has to sit out for two weeks for no apparent reason, despite finding himself in a good run of form, with Monreal in the opposite.

This falls in line with the Chambers decision. What was the objective here? Unless Kolasinac has surpassed Monreal as the primary leftback and will now be used in the Europa League, which I highly doubt, then it was just another pointless decision to give Monreal the nod ahead of the Bosnian bruiser.

Defense is a problem with this team, and Kolasinac is certainly a potential solution that can make major improvements on Monreal’s shortcomings. But we aren’t going to tap into that if we never let him take the pitch, or do so inconsistently.

Monreal isn’t young anymore, he isn’t going to be able to be relied upon that much longer. Priority should be given to Kolasinac in these types of matches to gauge if he is ready to be the regular, like he was at the beginning of the year.

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Otherwise, we’re left trying to figure all this stuff out in the preseason, which, as we’ve seen, is not a very good gauge.

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