Arsenal: Who’s giddy about Konstantinos Mavropanos? I am!

Arsenal need defensive help quite badly, and finally, after almost an entire season, Konstantinos Mavropanos was given his chance. And that’s all that matters.

Every two months or so I write a “where the hells is Konstantinos Mavropanos” article, like clockwork. For being such a promising beacon of light for Arsenal last season, he has been an absolute nobody this year. It started with the suspension, then the injury, and then the silence.

There was no academy appearances, there were no updates about his health, just a whole lot of nothing. Apparently, that was because his nagging injury just never went away, but it was the complete lack of coverage that was truly bizarre.

Especially in the mood of the season – that defensive help was tremendously needed. Like, desperately. We were wholly reliant on Laurent Koscielny and Sokratis. When paired, they were great. But separate, for injuries or suspensions, both of which are quite common for the two, everything went to hell.

Shkodran Mustafi has been his usual inconsistent self, skewing more and more towards a perpetual train wreck, and while Nacho Monreal has his usages, he’s not a Premier League centerback.

I was literally desperate for Mavropanos, and for the first time this season, he got a nod in a major Premier League fixture, in place of his suspended countryman, Sokratis.

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He only got 58 minutes. But in those 58 minutes, the hype train packed in the passengers and set off. Because while he was, of course, rusty, he wasn’t as rusty as Koscielny was when Koscielny returned from injury.

And that’s saying something. Something good. This young man has been out for nearly a year himself, and returning to such a crucial fixture, his main fault was being too aggressive. But even in the wake of that, he found solidity in cutting out passing lanes and forming a firm base in that back line.

Maybe I’m grossly blowing it out of proportion simply because I’m elated that we finally have someone else to invest in. Yeah, that’s probably it. And who wouldn’t be giddy over something like that? It remains to be seen how much he’ll feature when Sokratis comes back, but I like to think that he’ll take precedence with the summer fast approaching.

If nothing else, it gives us something to actually look forward to on the defense beyond the transfer market. Been awhile since we had that.