Arsenal: Konstantinos Mavropanos even better a second time

Konstantinos Mavropanos may be leaving Arsenal temporarily, but with a brand new contract, his second-coming is going to be just as good if not better.

Yet again, the talk of the Arsenal town is what this club can do with the defense to make it comprehensively better. Starting next year, we will have seven defenders on the books, meaning that there are multiples sales forthcoming, but without the right reinvestment, thinning the herd doesn’t do all that much.

What we need is some long-term change that will compile over the years. That’s what the idea was in signing William Saliba before loaning him out for the year. Set the foundation this year and let Saliba come in when we have a clearer picture of what’s needed.

I’m still not convinced we’re going to sign much else on the defensive side this summer. If we’re keeping David Luiz, Calum Chambers, Pablo Mari, and potentially Rob Holding, it may be enough to put off for another year.

That doesn’t even account for if we keep Shkodran Mustafi, which I’m not 100% against anymore. He’s shaped up incredibly these past couple months.

Giving next year the time to settle that it needs, we can go about the year next year with an improved and younger defense knowing that at the end of the year we’re getting Konstantinos Mavropanos back at the end of his loan to Stuttgart.

Which is just amazing forward planning. Because if we don’t need him, if this defense shapes up, we can just turn it around and sell him for a decent rate seeing as how he just signed a new deal and will undoubtedly improve during his loan.

Meanwhile, if we do need him, we get him for free and don’t have to worry about spending more money to fix a problem that should have already been fixed.

Either way, it’s the clearest win we could ask for, and that makes his second coming even more exciting than the first coming, which was already incredibly exciting. Remember it? Sven Mislintat snagging him, Arsene Wenger so impressed by him that he kept him around rather than loaning him? Yeah, those were some good times.

Mavropanos’ second coming is going to be messianic one way or another. Either he fits the void or he turns a profit because we already filled the void. Pile up for the future, that’s what this is all about.