Gibbs or Santos – Who should be our first-choice left-back?

Now right off the bat, let me say that I believe selling Clichy was the right choice, as I feel he was defensively vulnerable, and his attacking qualities did not make up for his defensive frailties. I personally believe Gibbs should have taken over his role and become first choice left-back last season, as he clearly has massive potential. If he can get a break with his injuries, he could quite easily become the first choice left-back for the England national team by the 2014 World Cup, and arguably be one of the best in the league. He stands at 5’11’’, which is the same height as Santos, but he seemingly puts more into the aerial duels, and as a result, wins more of them. This is true for the majority of Gibbs attributes. He simply has phenomenal work-rate. For such a young player, the 22-year-old is surprisingly consistent and since his error/slip against Manchester United in the Champions League a few years back, he has been a very solid defender and competent attacker, arguably more so than Clichy was.

Now onto Santos. I’ll be honest; this is one player who confuses me a lot. He started off and seemed very shaky in defence, but quite useful going forward. But as he got more game time, the Brazilian became more dependable. However, he worries me. In my opinion, the 29-year-old is too inconsistent to be first choice left-back. Think back to the 5-3 win at the Bridge. First half he was absolutely woeful, and I tend not to be too harsh on new signings, especially in touch matches, which this definitely was, but he was shocking. He was constantly out of position, didn’t hurry back after attacking, was out paced on numerous occasions, looked afraid to tackle, the list goes on and on. But second half we saw a different player. He bombed forward and then got back into position before the counter was on, put everything he had into his tackles, and eventually got on the score-sheet! However, he is still far too risky to start there frequently, and Gibbs, when fully fit, is a quality player. It says a lot for Kieran’s ability that with our first choice defence of him, Thomas Vermaelen, Laurent Koscielny and Sagna, we are undefeated.

Now obviously this is down to the whole teams defensive effort and it would be ridiculous to put that down to just one player alone, but in Kieran Gibbs, if we can keep him fit and away from injury, I believe we have our left-back for at least the next eight years.

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