Arsenal: The search for a “safe bet” lands on Rob Holding

Arsenal’s defense is suspectly decent? Seems like a good way to put it. If you’re looking for someone to truly invest in though, it has to be Rob Holding.

Sure, I’ve gotten kind of annoyed by people throwing shade at the Arsenal defense as of late. So many experts are griping about their abilities when, in truth, they’re just making the best of a bad situation. This defense is riddled with injuries and we’re currently relying on Shkodran Mustafi to be the calming presence.

He’s done surprisingly well in that capacity. And the defense has as a whole. But I still understand the reservations against investing faith in Mustafi, or David Luiz. Both have such a long track record of individual mistakes that you assume it’s going to rear up again to Mustafi like it did Luiz.

Until it does, I’ll shut up. But I also won’t have full confidence until this new trend goes for much longer, if it’s even allowed too.

I also have trouble investing a ton of faith in Pablo Mari. Not least of all because he’s hurt. I just haven’t seen enough of him. And William Saliba is probably going to be incredible, but again, seeing is believing with most things Arsenal.

There was also some guy named Sokratis once, but…

And Calum Chambers too. Faith, yes. But get healthy first. As for the here and now and moving into the future, there is only one guy worthy of investing faith in and it’s Rob Holding. And I say that not as a “last ditch option.” Holding has been a great defender in the past, disrupted only by injuries.

Now that he is back and proving to be perfectly capable, why should we feel hesitant? He’s not Mustafi or Luiz. He doesn’t have that track record of being a problem. Quite the opposite. So while we’re all moaning about the current state of the defense and how it could collapse at any moment, wouldn’t we rather be optimists and turn that lack of faith into actual water-holding faith? Holding is deserving of that. We don’t need to dream of some far off future where we have a reliable defender. We have one right now.

Of course, he’s only one guy, and we need more than that, but one step at a time. Let’s start with one defender and build out from there. We kind of already are.