Arsenal: Kieran Tierney just another weapon waiting to be unleashed

Arsenal are returning to health, with many players, Kieran Tierney included, not even having been unleashed yet. Prepare yourselves.

Arsenal‘s start to the season has been a mixed bag, but sitting in third place with so many weapons yet to be unleashed, you have to be pretty excited. Most of the success the club has found thus far has been with minimal help of any summer acquisitions.

Dani Ceballos has had his small impact, though he can’t quite catch on. The same goes with Nicolas Pepe. David Luiz is starting every match, but I don’t see him as a high impact guy. And then there is Kieran Tierney, who hasn’t even set foot on a Premier League pitch yet.

I keep coming back to the same point—this international break comes at the perfect time, because it’s essentially like a reset for the Gunners to finally get all of their first choice options into the starting XI, and for me, I think that Tierney is going to unlock a whole new world of possibilities that we’ve not seen in ages.

We’re used to the occasional run by our fullbacks. Sead Kolasinac attacks well and Calum Chambers gets forward for his part, though he thrives on the defensive end. And Ainsley Maitland-Niles is obviously attack-oriented too.

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But just having seen what little we have out of Tierney in the midweek competitions, I haven’t seen such a well-rounded, classic-style-yet-modern fullback… perhaps ever. The way he moves with the ball looks like a modern winger and the way he defends looks like a classic fullback. It’s the perfect combination for a club that isn’t used to that high of a level of play at leftback.

We’ve seen it before with Hector Bellerin on the right (and that’s a whole different conversation) but to have that capability on both sides opens up that entire side of the pitch and allows the Gunners to literally play touchline to touch line with maximum effectiveness.

Pair them with capable wingers, which we have, and this attack is starting to look even deadlier than the Fab Four was ever meant to be.

The point is, for all you complaining about the club’s form in the early going, we haven’t even unleashed so many players, of which Kieran Tierney counts himself among.

So relax. Wait til you see what happens against Sheffield United. Because I think we’re going to like it.