Arsenal: The left wing question has far too many answers

Arsenal’s left wing has suddenly become the most densely populated place on earth, and with so many options, how do you possibly find the right one?

It wasn’t more than a couple years ago that Arsenal couldn’t even field a single winger because they didn’t have any. Now all of a sudden they have so many answers to the questions asked at left wing that there are multiple right answers. And they’re all exciting.

As it stands, Mikel Arteta has made it his prerogative to keep Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as a left wing. Whatever, it’s Arteta’s team and it’s working, so I won’t complain. Aubameyang has found joy coming in off the back of his striker and getting picked out by Nicolas Pepe. It’s exciting and, like I said, it’s working.

But in the meantime, Aubameyang is preventing true left wingers from getting in there and growing into the roll. We haven’t had two natural wingers under Mikel Arteta, and as such, it’s still a wonder how that would look. Honestly, probably pretty good.

We have the options. We have more than enough options. As it stands, the two biggest options are obvious. Bukayo Saka wants to play left wing and Gabriel Martinelli has been playing left wing.

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For Saka, his dribbling and deliveries have been delectable, as he now leads the team in assists. He’s doing all that from leftback, which makes the potential of him playing in an attacking role even more delicious.

For Gabriel Martinelli, it’s been a similar approach as Aubameyang. He scores goals. With blistering pace, a cool head and soft feet, he’s able to instigate the kind of attacking prowess we need. Both he and Saka should be starting on the left wing. They each attack in different, unique ways, and they can play off each other well.

But you can’t start two guys simultaneously. Duh. And you certainly can’t start three guys simultaneously.

This doesn’t even take into account the possibility of Reiss Nelson. Which is a topic for another day.

Four guys, one role. There is no easy answer to this. But one solution Arteta really hasn’t tried yet is removing the No. 10 entirely and going with a 4-4-2 to allow for two natural wingers flanking two strikers.

There are just so many possibilities, which is usually a good thing, but in this case I just wish we could see more of the young guns.