Arsenal vs Brighton: 4 most likely solutions to left-back dilemma

With Kieran Tierney set to undergo season-ending surgery, Mikel Arteta faces a major conundrum on how to best replace the Scottish full-back in the Arsenal team.

Monday’s 3-0 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace served as a reality check (call it a slap in the face) for an Arsenal team which had been on a five-game winning streak away from home.

Yet more troubling than the defeat itself was the absence of Tierney, whose solid presence was missed straight from the opening kick-off.

Nuno Tavares started for the first time in months and looked completely out of sorts defensively, so much so that he was hooked at half-time. While Arteta claimed this was a tactical switch as we were trailing 2-0, it certainly won’t help the Portuguese international’s confidence.

Arsenal vs Brighton: Mikel Arteta’s 4 most likely solutions to left-back dilemma after Kieran Tierney suffers season-ending injury

The change saw Granit Xhaka filled in at left-back in the second half, but this probably won’t be a viable solution going forward, particularly as Thomas Partey is also out with a thigh injury.

Rather than further destabilize our entire midfield, I believe there are four more plausible alternatives which Arteta can choose from in the Premier League this Saturday, and I’ve ranked them from least likely to most likely in terms of what I expect him to do.

1. Move Cedric to Left-Back

Cedric has been mostly solid at right-back over the past couple months as Takehiro Tomiyasu has battled a calf injury. At the very least, he is more defensively reliable than Tavares (though that isn’t saying much), so moving him to left-back shouldn’t be completely out of the question.

It’s somewhere he featured in last season when this very same injury nightmare arose, round about the same time of the campaign, too.

With Tomiyasu still out for at least a couple more weeks, Benjamin White could move out to right-back as he has done before, with Rob Holding coming into the XI. However, at this point I am not convinced that Arteta would tamper with his first-choice defensive partnership, which has been a bedrock of our success all season long.

Furthermore, I don’t think he would want to pick a right-footed player to start at left-back, as this may upset the balance of our build-up play, hence why I see this as the least likely option.

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