Arsenal vs Southampton: Put the “crisis” to bed early

Arsenal’s defensive “crisis” has been a big time talking point, but the crisis can be so easily avoided and put to bed once and for all against Southampton.

You never want to give the press something to talk about. Even worse – you never want to vindicate something they have tried to drum up as potential drama, because any time there is a whiff of drama at Arsenal, the sharks swarm.

That’s how I feel about the “defensive crisis” that everyone is talking about. It’s a non-story, plain and simple. When Rob Holding went down for the season, the immediate outcry was that the club was in a crisis, but I find this woefully overdramatic.

However, there was a bite-sized crisis that developed with the suspensions to Sokratis and Mustafi (and the German’s injury as well), so that simply fueled the fire of the crisis talks. Even with Laurent Koscielny back, there is still the murmuring of the ‘c’ word.

The crisis chatter can disappear entirely with a sturdy performance at St. Mary’s today. It’s that simple. You want to prove that a crisis isn’t happening? Thrive in the face of it. Then all the people crying “crisis!” can crawl back under their rocks and wait for the next drama niblet.

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What we have against Southampton is a very patched-together defensive line. I am assuming that it will be Laurent Koscielny at the center of a back three, flanked by Nacho Monreal on his left and Stephan Lichtsteiner on his right. The latter played the right centerback role last time out against Huddersfield, and he played it well, and the former has played centerback roles before, mainly in a back three, and usually alongside Koscielny.

So there is a lot of experience and reliability to be found here, despite not having used this exact combination before. And I want to see that experience tuck the “crisis” claimers to bed with a good old-fashioned clean sheet, because that is the easiest way to remind the world that we aren’t in a damn crisis!

It’s a bummer about Rob Holding being out, and I didn’t know how we would respond for awhile there, but this is the point I was making about how crucial picking up Lichtsteiner was. For reasons exactly like this one!

Let’s make this simple. Prove that we had a back three behind our regular back three that was capable of shutting down a Premier League attack all along.