Arsenal: There’s only one place Calum Chambers can’t be

Calum Chamber is a versatile dude, and Arsenal should embrace that, but come Sheffield United, there is only one place he cannot be.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m probably getting about as annoyingly pro-Calum Chambers as I’ve been pro-Granit Xhaka. Of course, I’ve always been pro-Calum Chambers, but while he was away at Fulham, I had very little cause to write about him at Pain in the Arsenal.

But now that he’s here, the bias is on. Not that it’s really a bias, just an honest assessment of his ability.

Going into Sheffield United, Unai Emery has a decision to make regarding Chambers. With Hector Bellerin healthy and an undoubted reluctance to bench David Luiz, there are essentially four things you can do with Chambers.

The first thing you can do is keep him at rightback and leave Hector Bellerin on the bench. After all, why shouldn’t Bellerin have to earn his spot as well? And who says he’s even passed up Ainsley Maitland-Niles?

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Chambers has been tremendous at rightback, so it would be completely justified to leave him there, despite the return of the prolific rightback.

Another option is to do what should be done and make the hard decision, move Chambers to centerback in place of David Luiz and let Bellerin into the starting XI, thus creating the back line we’ve needed for awhile. This would require Emery swallowing his apprehension and moving Luiz though, and I’m still not sure how likely that is, but there’s always hope.

A third option is to surprise the hell out of everyone and move him into the midfield, where I think we’d be pleasantly surprised to discover that we actually do have a defensive midfielder, and we have this whole time.

All of these are viable options. I’d honestly accept them all. As long as Calum Chambers is on the pitch, Unai Emery hasn’t technically made a poor decision.

Which leads into the fourth thing that Emery could do with Chambers—move him to the bench. This is the absolute only thing that cannot be done. Literally, cannot. Because if it is done, then Emery goes against everything that he stands for and he puts Chambers in an awkward position yet again.

Personally, it will make me question the decision making of Emery if he decides that Chambers isn’t deserving of a starting spot. So go ahead and avoid that and keep him in there.