Arsenal: No way, who’d have thought Calum Chambers was this good?

Unai Emery made some pretty big changes against Leicester City, but it didn’t work. Still, Calum Chambers played well, and the Arsenal man has to be relied upon now.

Me. That’s who. In case you wanted an answer to the question. Calum Chambers and his Arsenal career has been so unnecessarily unreliable over the past few years. For whatever reason, and I really don’t know why, come Arsene Wenger or Unai Emery, neither felt like counting on the Englishman to be a part of their present day set-up.

Still, Emery had no choice but to play Chambers in the opening match of the season, and lo and behold, our first away clean sheet in over a year. And it’s not like we’ve had any since then either. Why? Because Chambers was promptly benched for his good work.

He only came back into the fray when desperation called on him to play rightback. Go figure, Chambers did tremendous and again proved himself to be one of our best defenders.

Against Leicester City, finally, after months and months, Unai Emery called on Chambers again to take part in the starting XI and to be the right-sided centerback of a back three (why the back three… who knows).

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Chambers was the best player on the pitch. Again. By far. He held Jamie Vardy in as much check as one player can. He was instrumental in defense, even saving a goal and going above and beyond. He was tremendous on the ball, he was composed in defense. He was everything he’s ever been, everything we always see him being.

Chambers continues to impress. On a defense that can’t stop anything, why wouldn’t we call upon the players most capable of doing something about it?

That might be what Unai Emery was finally doing against Leicester. He started a back three with David Luiz, Rob Holding and Calum Chambers, and while the left side of that back three was not so good, the right side was quite strong and positive.

What that means going forward, I can’t say. No one can. Because this is Unai Emery we’re talking about. His decision making process is anyone’s guess. And I emphasize the word guess.

That said, I can’t imagine a way forward that doesn’t involve Calum Chambers. Not after the individual performance he put up against Leicester and his portfolio going up to that point. But Emery has proven me wrong before.