Arsenal: Oh, look, Calum Chambers is already needed

Arsenal’s defense was, well, shaky against Manchester City. So shaky that I wouldn’t mind a change. Only we can’t make one.

Arsenal did improve against Manchester City. I keep having to remind myself of this. City didn’t win 3-0 in easy fashion, stomping us in the first half and chilling in the second. It was much closer than that, as the Gunners did muster some decent chances of their own.

Unfortunately, most were just poorly taken, or tuckered out with a very little threat to City ever growing out of it.

Defensively, there weren’t as many mistakes as there had been last year, but there was still some really bad defending. Shkodran Mustafi had some strong moments, but he also had just as many weak ones. Raheem Sterling spun him twice in one run.

Sokratis wasn’t terrible either, but he had a few nervy situations himself.

All in all, it was not a cohesive defensive effort, with Petr Cech and his centerback pairing struggling to inspire any sort of confidence from that back triangle. They were shaky throughout the course of the 90.

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I’ve already said that Cech should be yanked against Chelsea in favor of Bernd Leno, and I’d also like to see Mustafi sat down, though I know that won’t actually happen. He does deserve to recover, sure he does. But there will be time for that.

And lucky for him, there is no one there to take his place. By loaning out Calum Chambers, the Gunners handcuffed themselves to Rob Holding, who is absolutely not ready to be thrown out into this new system. Not when he couldn’t even handle the old.

If Chambers was still here, I would say that we should absolutely yank Mustafi (or Sokratis, I’m not picky) to get some more reliability back there. Chambers is (was) one of our best defenders with the ball at his feet and when things get sticky, he just ejects the ball from the stickiness. Hard to fault any of that.

But we don’t have that option. Meaning we are going to be sticking with this pairing and hoping for the best.

It’s not the end of the world. They had their shining moments. But is it too much to ask for some damn confidence in the defense? I get that it was Manchester City and all, but really.

Maybe against Chelsea it will be different. One can only hope.