Arsenal set sights on Lee Buchanan as perfect Tierney cover

What Arsenal need in the summer may be entirely different to what Arsenal get in the summer. Their list of targets, like all clubs, will be extensive for every position but in each case they must ensure they get the right profile. Based on their left-back targets, they’re doing that.

A mistake that the club are still reeling from, and will continue to suffer from as the season winds down, is not securing a left-back in the January.

Mikel Arteta insisted they couldn’t land the targets they were after in the winter and had to settle on the midfield and goalkeeper reinforcements they signed, but the injuries to Kieran Tierney have rocked the side since with presumed back-up Cedric Soares usurped by 100%-not-a-suitable-back-up Granit Xhaka.

The manager showed his tactical acumen in reshaping the team to accommodate that loss, working wonders away at Slavia Prague most notably, but that ploy has now run its course and needs abandoning after coming unstuck in Villarreal.

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Arsenal set sights on Lee Buchanan as perfect Kieran Tierney cover in summer transfer window

Given its use against Newcastle it may well be around for longer. It’s the route the manager wishes to take to have the best chance of producing positive results, one that shouldn’t have needed to be adopted in the first place.

Tierney’s absence is so telling and one of the essential pieces of business to conclude in the summer is that the next time the Scot is unavailable, or even just rested, that it won’t require a total restructuring of the team as a result.

Furthermore, Xhaka’s physicality in midfield isn’t close to being matched by either Mohamed Elneny or Dani Ceballos. Thomas Partey misses his partner, too.

All the talk building up to the summer transfer window opening has centred around locating a new right-back. Achraf Hakimi, Tariq Lamptey, Max Aarons and Emerson Royal have all been name dropped as the future of Hector Bellerin is set to be away from the Emirates Stadium, with little mention of competition for Tierney.

Fellow Scotsman Josh Doig has been fleetingly mentioned alongside Manchester City, but the latest speculation lists another name entering the fray, one fortunately not named anything remotely similar sounding to Sead Kolasinac.