Arsenal: You can’t count on Rob Holding next season

Arsenal have a lot of bodies in their central defense, but not a lot of reliability. And Rob Holding, as of right now, is just another body.

In the first few months of last season, Rob Holding looked like he had figured it out. After that “sophomore slump” season at Arsenal, he needed to stamp himself on the first-team picture and show that he could be counted on for an entire season.

He didn’t get that opportunity. He was robbed of it when he went down with a season-ending injury. And worse than the fact that we didn’t get to rely on his services all year, was the fact that we didn’t get a good grasp of how much he could be counted on in the future.

I made the point not more than a couple months ago that, going into the transfer window, we had to act like Rob Holding wasn’t even there. Not because he wasn’t going to actually be there, but because this defense is in such a state that we really need unmistakable help in that defense. Key word – unmistakable.

I want to see Rob Holding work his way into the starting job and claim it with both hands like a Jiu Jitsu chokehold. But in the meantime, do we really want to run the risk?

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Not everyone comes back from injury like Laurent Koscielny does, claiming the first team role, becoming our best defender all over again and holding down the starting spot despite a body that just doesn’t want to hold up to the strains of the Premier League.

Holding doesn’t have the pedigree to be counted on to do that. We have to be prepared for the worst because, I don’t know about you (actually, I suspect I do), but I’m tired of our hapless defense letting in 50+ goals a season. I hate it. And if we really want that to change, we have to invest in the defense and let those that are already here fight for their spot.

Again, I would love to believe that Holding and Calum Chambers and Konstantinos Mavropanos and Sokratis can stem the flow of goals, and truly, they may be able to. But why run the risk?

If we can’t get two new centerbacks, we have to at least get one. And not just ‘a’ centerback, but the kind that you can build a defense around. We have to plan for life without the reliability of Koscielny.