Arsenal: Zech Medley faith is needed elsewhere

Arsenal have handed Zech Medley a contract extension, which is great, so now let’s see him on the pitch right? That’s what faith looks like.

Usually, there are two ways to show that the club has faith in a player – you can hand him a contract with shiny new wages and post a picture on your social media saying “Zech Medley is a Gooner!” or you can play him, and show the world that he has a clear future at Arsenal.

For Zech Medley, the former happened first. The physical centerback has inked a brand new contract keeping him at the club and thus, he avoids falling by the wayside, another young product that never cut the grade.

This is all quite exciting, because, as alluded to, it shows faith in the kid. It shows that the club believes in his future and wants to keep him around long enough to find out more about him and give him every chance to be a solution on a defense desperately needing exactly that.

So my question is, with all of this faith off the pitch, where it the faith on? I am particularly referring to those matches where Granit Xhaka was moved back into the defense to play as a centerback and leftback, presumably because he is left-footed.

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Why wasn’t Zech Medley given that opportunity, being a young man trained in the art of defense, also with a left foot? Is it really all that different from letting Emile Smith Rowe or Bukayo Saka make appearances with the first team?

The thing is, this defense has been in such a fragile state, that any and all solutions have to be considered, and clearly something about Medley is jiving with the people that matter at the club, so now I just want to see him out there, proving himself a potential solution so that the summer doesn’t have to look so daunting.

In case you haven’t noticed, a big theme I’ve been talking about lately is not needing to buy a handful of defenders this summer, and one great way to avoid that would be to let Konstantinos Mavropanos and Zech Medley have a go, to see if they can be what we would otherwise have to buy.

And have I mentioned how tall Medley is? He’s tall. Which is awesome, because we have no tall defenders. So… bonus points there. Now can we see him play? Please?