Arsenal: It’s time to turn the opportunity meter to Rob Holding

Arsenal are clattering about the transfer market looking for a defender, meanwhile Rob Holding is still here. Isn’t it time for him again?

Arsenal‘s defense is in a pinch, and usually that means taking some risks. With David Luiz suffering a straight red card to abruptly end his run of good, Sokratis still not back and Calum Chambers out for the year, Mikel Arteta is going to have to get creative.

Unfortunately, that will likely mean implementing Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi, a partnership that I am less than excited to see. Either that or bringing Dinos Mavropanos back from the great beyond, or wherever he is these days.

But then there’s Rob Holding. Holding got ten whole minutes on the pitch against Chelsea and didn’t completely implode the defense like a dying star, so perhaps it’s time to give him another look in light of any other option.

Luiz will now miss three matches. Mustafi shouldn’t be on a pitch the pitch after what happened against Chelsea and Sokratis is hopefully finally better.

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If you recall, one of our best defensive performances this year came on opening day, still under Unai Emery. The partnership then was Calum Chambers and Sokratis, and together, this improbable duo kept our first away clean sheet in ages.

It can be done with the right mindset, and that’s what Holding and Sokratis can give us. It’s a wild card, there’s nothing guaranteed about it, but one of our necessary side quests right now should be getting Holding back into comfort and consistency. I said the same kinds of stuff about Chambers, and I will continue to, but Holding can alleviate so much stress if we can just maximize him and get him back to where he was before his injury. Because he was in some tremendous form. The kind of form that can anchor a Premier League defense and move us into more consistent defensive waters.

But getting back there is another matter, and it won’t happen if he doesn’t get a chance to make an impact in an important situation such as what we would be asking for from him now. That said, is it really any worse than the risk of Mustafi? I doubt that very much.

Holding appears healthy. He’ll probably get his shot in the FA Cup, but he needs more than that. I really hope that Mikel Arteta can see that too.