Arsenal: Hector Bellerin, Maitland-Niles, setting clear precedent

Arsenal have a good thing going in certain positions, and the right side of the defense is one such place, and it should be a precedent to live by.

Arsenal’s depth, when everyone is healthy, is something quite impressive across the board. But with advancing age, fluctuating quality and questionable longevity, there are only a few positions that look set for the long haul.

Perhaps the best example of what covering all your bases looks like is on the right side of our defense, where we boast Hector Bellerin – young, fast, dedicated, and a defender with attacking strengths, and Ainsley Maitland-Niles – young, fast, dedicated, and an attacker with defending strengths.

They are the perfect compliment to each other. Bellerin prefers playing fullbacks and Maitland-Niles looks better at wingback. Both are young and provide different things. It’s the perfect precedent to model other pursuits after.

For instance, consider the opposite side of the defense. Sead Kolasinac is a monster, and deserves all the time he gets. I have even made the case that you should build the team around him playing wingback. He’s just that good.

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But while Nacho Monreal is a consistent, reliable guy, he isn’t the Bellerin to Kolasinac’s Maitland-Niles. He doesn’t have that longevity. He’s rarely prolific. He’s just a good, steady presence.

Modeling the left side of our defense after the right side would be a masterstroke. Going after someone like Kieran Tierney, to give our left back the same positive, sturdy outlook as rightback would ensure that we could build around width from those positions no matter what comes to pass.

So much of the creative presence – or rather, the creative relief – has come form the fullbacks and/or wingbacks, such that even when the creative midfield wasn’t creating, the wide defenders were. And in a world where we have no wingers to speak of, having a reliable crop of attacking wide defenders is the next best thing. In fact, they were so good that you could make the argument that you might as well just bank on the wingbacks rather than trying to uproot and focus on wingers.

But with Kolasinac’s injury history, and the fact that he is just one guy, the need for a good, quality internal competitor is eking up on the to-do list, and there are a lot of ways to approach it.

Build for the wingbacks. There’s nothing wrong with doing so, even if it’s unconventional.