Arsenal: Sokratis is exclusive to the present, not the future

Arsenal are locking down Sokratis, at long last, so let’s put this in context. It has nothing to do with the future of the defense and everything to do with the present.

Arsenal‘s shambolic defense last year was the point of so much dread and depression for us fans last year that, going into the summer, the idea was floated about that the entire defense should just be ripped out from the roots.

Then we could start from scratch with a whole new schematic.

Obviously, that isn’t realistic. There are a lot of promising pieces in place for the future, many of whom are just begging for another chance to prove themselves.

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Still, the point is well see, the present defense was horrible, no matter how promising the future looked. We’d never get to that promise of a better future if the present continued to go belly-up.

The present – being Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny – was the seat of the problems last season. Both were riddled with mistakes and it all ended with the serious achilles injury that knocked Koscielny out for the long haul.

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This is the extent that Sokratis is being brought in to fix – as it stands, the Gunners have one regular first team defender – Mustafi. Calum Chambers should be given every chance to work his way in, but that still, at most, gives us two.

And that is assuming you even count Mustafi, which certainly not everyone does.

Sokratis is not here to unseat Chambers opportunity to be a regular. He is not here to block the Rob Holding, Konstantinos Mavopanos pipeline towards future defensive glory. He is here because there is a clear and present need for veteran, experienced defenders, of which the Gunners have maybe one, maybe two, maybe even zero.

Taken in this context, Sokratis couldn’t make much more sense. Despite how unexciting he is, and how almost anticlimactic he feels as a real life solution, the plausibility of this move makes complete and total sense.

And for the cost, you can’t do much better.

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That said, the key now is to subject him to the same trial requirements as everyone else. But that should go without saying.