Arsenal: This is not a brand new Sokratis; we’ve seen it before

Sokratis has had a massively up-and-down tenure at Arsenal, but this isn’t the first time he’s been quality and we must take care to remember that.

When Arsenal first signed Sokratis, there weren’t that many people that were thrilled about it. After a couple strong years at Dortmund, he was essentially over the hill. He was a cheap stopgap and little more. Which is rarely cause for excitement.

But then, early in his tenure, we began to see that there was still excellent quality in Sokratis Pairing him with Shkodran Mustafi didn’t necessarily help, but heroics weren’t that foreign to Sokratis, and his grittiness doubled up on his effectiveness.

Sneakily, he became a really good signing. Like, really good. But then he faded again. Unai Emery couldn’t seem to get the most out of the Greek defender and we began to curse Sokratis like he had never been good before.

It’s coming back full circle. Yet again we are beginning to see that Sokratis is, in fact, a good defender if you just use him the way he needs to be used.

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Paired with David Luiz, a partnership that seemed doomed from the start, Sokratis has found new life under Mikel Arteta. He’s put in solid performance after solid performance and capped it off against Crystal Palace by saving the match with a goal-preventing clearance.

But even without that clearance, there were so many strengths Sokratis was showing. He wasn’t letting people get in behind him. That’s often when he gets into trouble. He wasn’t making rash decisions. That’s also when he gets into trouble.

And what was most remarkable to me was how effectively he handled the ball. I’ve grown used to him making boneheaded passes, or panicking on the ball. Not so here. And if ever there was a time it should have happened, this was that match. It was high-paced, tons of pressure, and Sokratis was constantly pressed into making quick decisions and never did it lead to one of the mistakes that had come to typify his existence in the past year or so.

Again, though, this is not a new development. We’ve seen Sokratis be this good before. The fact that we’re seeing it again just means that Arteta knows how to do things around here.

It’s always nice to see players finding new life, but it’s happening so widely across the board under Arteta that it’s insane. Sokratis is just another of the bunch.