View From The Sphere

Why signing this young star would sort out our left flank

|
Image for Why signing this young star would sort out our left flank

Luke ShawA lot of talk has been about Arsenal needing to bring in a new forward this January, and rightly so with Olivier Giroud the only fit centre-forward available, as Theo Walcott is out for the season and Nicklas Bendtner is also sidelined.

But another area that I think needs addressing is the left wing position.

Although Arsene Wenger sets out a 4-2-3-1 (or 4-3-3, whichever way you like to look at it) the left winger, whoever this may be out of Tomas Rosicky, Jack Wilshere or Santi Cazorla, all of them like to drift into the centre, leaving a massive gap on the left side of the field.

As a result, we see a lot of our possession being played down the right flank usually ending with a poor cross from Bacary Sagna, and when we don’t have the ball the opposition look to take advantage of our left-back who is more often than not left unprotected and vulnerable due to the ‘winger’, whoever this is, not keeping his position and being undisciplined in his defensive duties. Of course this is not the players fault, they are just following the instructions of Wenger who more than likely tells them to cut in whenever they can to support the striker – but it does leave us unexposed at times and makes the left-backs job twice as hard.

Now before any one comments below saying ‘what do you know? You’re not a manager’ or ‘Who are you to tell Wenger what to do’, I will stress that this is only a blog and me expressing my views on the matter, not telling Wenger what he should be doing. Back to what I was getting at – I honestly believe we need to sign a player who is a traditional winger, someone that can get to the byline, or cut in, as well as track back to help out the full-back behind him. And I think the player who could offer us stability to the left side of our team is Luke Shaw.

I know, I know, the Southampton youngster is a left-back. But if we could get our hands on him then this would allow Kieran Gibbs to play a role he was accustomed to before he was modified into a full-back (the winger role) thus giving us more balance on the left side.

Although a very good left-back, I think we’d all agree that Gibbo attacks better than he defends, and with Shaw potentially behind him they could interchange positions effectively when one of them is tiring and ultimately create a great understanding with each other over the years.

It’s only a matter of time before Shaw eventually leaves Southampton, with us, Chelsea and Manchester United all keen on the 18-year-old, and I think signing the England Under-21 international would be hugely beneficial in the short as well as the long-term.

Share this article

4 comments

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *