Arsenal: 4 mistakes Mikel Arteta made vs Man City

4. Sead Kolasinac Should Not be Playing for Arsenal

Pablo Mari has been atrocious this season. Championship standard defending throughout the summer and into the current campaign.

Would the result have been any different if the Spaniard would have started? Probably not, let’s be honest.

But at least he isn’t in the midst of cancelling his contract and wanting his full salary paid out so he can go and join Mesut Ozil over at Fenerbahce. At least he isn’t on the way out of the club this summer.

Taking on anyone, let alone the champions, and fielding a player who you are trying to get out the door in whichever financially draining method it requires beggars belief. This is the management, coaching, leadership, whatever you want to call it, of someone who is in a job they are not qualified to be part of.

Yes, his hands are tied with absences, but this also follows through into allowing William Saliba to leave on loan. Mari, Chambers and Holding were chosen ahead of the Frenchman, yet still he plays Kolasinac. There is no hiding behind those calls. They were his based on his own observations. They were wrong.

Trying to find sense in such decision-making leaves you staring at an empty chalkboard.