Arsenal: Stephan Lichtsteiner about to hit the spotlight again

Arsenal’s defense is struggling to stay on their feet, but here comes Stephan Lichtsteiner, about to be a major piece of the puzzle again.

Burnley was a couple days ago, Brighton is in a couple days, and Liverpool is a few games after that. This is not a good time for Arsenal‘s defense to fall to pieces. Or… fall to even smaller pieces. There isn’t a lot of solidity to be found, very little we can rely on.

Sokratis is fantastic. Let’s get that out of the way. But on either side of him, assuming we run with a back three, is all kinds of flimsiness, with Mustafi stuck on the injured list, returning to training any day now (but probably not ready for bit), Koscielny shaky as can be after his long lay-off, Holding out for the year and Monreal presumably out for awhile (not even getting into the fullbacks), the cast is shifting.

Constantly.

And in the meantime, Unai Emery’s passion for the back three has pulled in Granit Xhaka and I’d hate to see what happens if he has to pull in someone else that doesn’t actually belong.

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That’s where we yet against see the brilliance of Stephan Lichtsteiner and, along those lines, the . brilliance in snagging him on a free. Because there is no man in the world of football with more intensity than him, with more of that hard-lined professionalism, and with a dose of reliability that you can’t find in many others.

That is who has become the last-ditch defensive option for Unai Emery. Lichtsteiner. The guy who hasn’t not won a domestic title since 2011. He’s a winner through and through, and a big reason why they were winning.

It was fantastic business getting him to commit to a club desperate for a new direction, needing guidance, needing brawn.

Lichtsteiner has had to step in several times to stem the bleeding, and he has always been up to the task. He is about to be asked to step into the spotlight again as the hectic holiday fixture list wraps up and, yet again, I couldn’t be more confident in our “last ditch” option. Every time I consider the “crisis” that is currently in motion, I think of Lichtsteiner. The winner, the fighter, the free transfer that is doing so, so much.

And then all I can think of is, “meh, it could get much worse.”