Arsenal vs Standard Liege: Rotational defense is the better defense

Arsenal’s rotation squad is churning out the defense that we all actually want to see, so Standard Liege will give us another taste of the (near) future.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, no one likes that Arsenal continuously run with David Luiz and Sokratis at the back. It’s mistake-ridden, unreliable and annoying. Two veterans, neither of whom can keep their acts in gear. They were good for the first time against Manchester United, but it did little to change opinions about their usefulness.

And while I love Sead Kolasinac, there’s no denying that improvements could be made there, and the same goes across the pitch at right back. Calum Chambers deserves to start at centerback and Ainsley Maitland-Niles isn’t the best defensively, though he is definitely improving.

All in all, this defense is maybe a five or six out of ten. At best it can tickle a seven, but that’s asking for a lot.

Meanwhile, the defense that we are going to see against Standard Liege is likely the same defense that we saw and promptly fell in love with against Forest.

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Hector Bellerin, Rob Holding, Kieran Tierney…………. and Shkodran Mustafi.

Focus on the first three and replace the last one with Calum Chambers (or William Saliba) and you have a defense that isn’t just young, exciting and brimming with potential. It’s proven. Bellerin has long been an established presence, Holding is working to regain what stature was lost with his injury (and succeeding at that) and Kieran Tierney is an internationally established presence who just needs time to prove that the Premier League is where he belongs.

And Calum Chambers? Don’t even get me started on him. The most deserving guy on this team, if you ask me.

This from our rotational defense. This rotational defense has so much more promise, so much more benefit, versatility, longevity… so much more everything… than our first-choice Premier League defense. Which is a good and bad thing.

A good thing because it’s just a matter of time before the rotational defense becomes the first-choice defense. A bad thing because time doesn’t go by any quicker just because you’re more desperate than you were before.

So let’s take it for what it is. We have the defense we want, they’re just all getting healthy again. And while it sucks to wait, at least we can see where this is going. No question marks involved.