Arsenal: One obvious weak link remains securely fastened

Arsenal are really coming around. Like, big time. And that’s because Unai Emery is testing all the links in the chain. One remains untested.

Arsenal are improving by leaps and bounds. Most of it is coming from the attack, which is firing on all cylinders. It’s clicking so well that they’ve quickly risen to the second most goals in the Premier League while the club has risen to fourth in the table.

The defense is improving too, though it once seemed impossible. And Unai Emery deserves a lot of credit for the chances taking place. He has not been afraid to make changes in an effort to weed out the weak links in the chain he is putting together.

When the attack was struggling to put home chances, he finally got Alexandre Lacazette in there to help. When Guendouzi’s positioning woes were causing strife in the midfield, he worked Torreira in there.

Emery has experimented at nearly all positions and he has come away with the best possible solution. At nearly every position.

The one area that remains a weak link in the chain, completely untested, is at fullback. Specifically at rightback, with Hector Bellerin‘s consistent errors (literally at least one a match), but also with Nacho Monreal, who has been struggling in his own right to keep pace with the Emery style of play.

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There are options. That is the point behind all of this. Bellerin and Monreal have held these starting roles for years, and for the majority of those years, there hasn’t been anyone behind them to challenge them.

Now there are. Lichtsteiner and Kolasinac are both there and in my obvious and overstated opinion, they are both upgrades on the constant mistakes we are working with.

By weak links in the chain that “remain untested,” I simply mean that they have never been challenged. Guendouzi has been challenged and he is improving. Lacazette was challenged and he worked his way into the starting XI. The point of having options is to not let these mistakes become commonplace. The point is to build the strongest chain possible and, right now, as the chain strengthens, there remains one position that is a problem.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be proven a strong link again, it means that they simply need to be tested to prove their strength, or be replaced by a stronger link. Because it is a problem and we can’t ignore it forever. We saw it again against Fulham and I’d reckon it won’t be the last time.