Amid the fallout from that chastening home defeat to Liverpool in their opening game of the season, when Arsenal’s fragile and callow defence was brutally exposed, came the accusation that Laurent Koscielny should have stepped forward and bailed Arsène Wenger out. The Arsenal manager was also criticised for not telling Koscielny that, with only two young centre-backs at his disposal, it was a case of needs must.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision – and Wenger said he has questioned whether he should have taken a gamble – Koscielny proved he was willing to put his body on the line six days later, when he declared himself fit to play against Leicester despite pulling out of training 24 hours before the game with a back problem.
Koscielny’s injury was just about the last thing Wenger needed and prompted the Arsenal manager to travel to Leicester with an extra player – Krystian Bielik, an 18-year-old Polish centre-back – in case the France international failed to make it and another place needed to be filled on the substitutes’ bench.
The doomsday scenario of Calum Chambers once again partnering Rob Holding at centre-half was avoided when Koscielny agreed to start, and the significance of that decision was not lost on Wenger, who admitted Arsenal would have been staring at back‑to‑back defeats without the 30-year-old’s calming presence at the heart of defence. “We look a different team straight away and he gave us stability,” he said as he reflected on the decision to play Koscielny.
“I saw that we were a bit too young and I have no real solution at central defence at the moment, and in fairness he had a big back problem – on Friday he came out of training. We came with 19 players and on the morning of the game we decided that he could play and I think it saved us this point.”
Many Arsenal fans will feel the outcome could have been different against Liverpool if Koscielny had been thrust into the XI. Others will question why Wenger did not recruit a top-class central defender – something that was arguably needed before Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista picked up long-term injuries – and hope he addresses that area before the window closes, whether that means signing Valencia’s Shkodran Mustafi or someone else.
Wenger, clearly annoyed that a familiar debate was being aired, claimed that identifying the right player, rather than a reluctance to reach for the cheque book, is the reason for the lack of transfer activity at Arsenal. As for the argument about Koscielny and the Liverpool match, Wenger gave the impression he has wrestled with whether he made the right call, yet ultimately feels that he had little option.
“I think, should I have taken a gamble or not? But because we lost already two defenders, if I lost another one for two or three months we have a massive problem. He [Koscielny] was not ready. He had only four days training [before Liverpool] and it is too short after having four weeks off. I think he was very brave today.”
Holding, making his second Premier League appearance, played well alongside Koscielny and it was a source of frustration to Wenger that the post‑match questions centred on how the manager will placate the travelling Arsenal supporters who urged him to “spend some money”, rather than focusing on the performance of a 20-year-old Englishman. Yet Wenger, who has allowed Joel Campbell to join Sporting Lisbon on a season-long loan, knows how the industry works and there is no escaping the fans’ unrest among Arsenal fans.
On another day the contribution of Alexis Sánchez might have come under greater scrutiny. Deployed as a centre-forward in the absence of Olivier Giroud, who Wenger said will be up to full speed after the international break, Sánchez looked like a square peg in a round hole. Wenger said last week that the Chilean “did not have the most convincing game” as a striker against Liverpool and, on the back of another wholly ineffective display up front, it seems likely we have seen the last of this experiment.
Quite what the solution is without Giroud in the team is unclear, other than possibly playing Theo Walcott in the role that Wenger hoped Jamie Vardy would fill when he pursued the Leicester striker in the summer. But there is no escaping the fact that Arsenal are short in that department and, once again, the question is whether Wenger will put that right in the coming weeks.
