Arsenal: So, why is Calum Chambers going on loan again?

Arsenal defender Calum Chambers is reportedly set to sign for Fulham on a year-long loan deal. I can’t really figure out why, however. So here are some potential, though speculative, reasons.

With just four days remaining of the transfer window and still with a rather hefty squad that does require some pruning, Arsenal are beginning to wield the knife and cut ties with unwanted branches.

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The evaluations that Unai Emery has made during the summer will be central to this process. While he will likely feel the same way as Arsene Wenger did about many of the more established players in the team, those on the fringes are not so protected. Emery may prefer them and push them into more prominent roles; he may also see no value in keeping them where Wenger did.

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It will be fascinating to see who stays and who goes over the next few days or so. Emery has a lot of decisions to make. And it seems as though he has already made one of the biggest ones, who, of the young centre-halves will not see much playing time and is better served plying their trade elsewhere.

Calum Chambers, per a wide range of reports in the media on Monday morning, is set to sign with Fulham on a year-long loan deal. The two clubs have agreed to the transfer. There is now just the rigmarole of the medical and personal terms to be determined and completed, the latter of which should not be a problem seeing as this is a loan transfer, not a permanent one. This is a deal that seems inevitable in the coming days. But I still find myself asking ‘why?’

I understand that Arsenal currently have five fit centre-backs in the squad, meaning at least one will struggle to see the field at all and that that only worsens when Laurent Koscielny returns from a ruptured Achilles in the winter and that to continue the development of all of them at least one must be allowed to leave. But Chambers feels like the wrong one.

Of Konstantinos Mavropanos, Rob Holding and Chambers, Chambers is the most complete, ready-made defender. He still has his youthful exuberance, his moments of complacency, his misguided decisions. But he is better suited to playing week-in-week-out than either Mavropanos or Holding should injuries or suspensions hit. And Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi are hardly the most convincing starting pair anyway.

I can only presume that either Emery believes that Mavropanos or Holding or both are better than Chambers, or that this loan deal will be so beneficial to the defender’s long-term development, that he is willing to sacrifice Arsenal’s own short-term security at the position to achieve it. Either way, I’m not sure I agree with him. And given that Chambers was offered a new long-term contract earlier this summer, there must at least be some favour in Emery’s eyes.

This all seems like a messy situation. I hope that Emery has a clear plan of action in mind. I am sure he does. But from my external perspective, I can’t quite figure it out. I can’t work out why, and that is a little concerning.