Arsenal and best back four: Not even a question

On Wednesday, Arsenal head coach Unai Emery was asked whether his best back four is on the bench. In reality, the answer is so obvious there is no question to be asked: it is.

Throughout his tenure in north London, Arsenal head coach Unai Emery has had to deal with a defence heavily stented by injuries. He inherited an injured Laurent Koscielny, then saw Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin both suffer ACL tears, and had to deal with niggling issues to Nacho Monreal, Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles as well.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — The Unai Emery One

And this season, his second in charge, he started the year without his best defensive players. Bellerin is the starting right-back, newly signed Kieran Tierney the number one left-back, while Holding is anticipated to compete for a centre-back position. None have played a Premier League game thus far.

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This week, Emery was asked whether he believed his best defence was actually sat on his bench, not in the team — David Luiz, Sokratis and Sead Kolasinac have all been used as starters this season and have all disappointed in one way or another. His response was hardly convincing:

"“We are improving defensively, we are conceding less goals. That’s one objective we’re [achieving]. But I don’t want to achieve that best performance only with one system or with the same four players. In the Europa League we are using different players and they are also improving our defensive moment. It’s for all the players. Above all, I want to continue to be an offensive team, but improve defensively. Our mentality is to be offensive. I am going to get that balance little by little, but now we are becoming a more competitive team, we are improving defensively and we want for the next step to be to keep our offensive capacity. I think we are going to do that. After Monday, we can be disappointed but we’ve got another chance in 24 hours.”"

Emery did not answer the question.

It is rather obvious why that is. He does not want to publicly praise some players and by extension criticise others. It is not the best way to manage a team and any manager would have taken a similar approach to the inquisition. But that does not negate the fact that the question, in reality, has little bearing.

The evidence is quite clear: Arsenal’s best back four are presently sat on the bench. Bellerin is the most comfortable and superior right-back, Holding is, at the very least, a potential future solution to the centre-back position, whereas Sokratis and Luiz most definitely are not, while Tierney has proven himself to be years ahead of Kolasianc at left-back.

This has become quite evident to many watching the Gunners this seasons. Fans have been calling for a Tierney-Holding-Chambers-Bellerin backline for many weeks, and while Emery has seen his side concede no open-play goals in the past two matches, there is still a dire need for defensive improvements, especially when trying to build out from the back.

So yes, if you were wondering, Arsenal’s best back four is on the bench. The only problem is I am not sure their manager has recognised as much.