Calum Chambers. Rob Holding. Konstantinos Mavropanos.
It is hard enough to give one young player enough game time to develop. But 3 young players, in the same position, it is near enough impossible.
I asked a simple question on the She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Facebook page. It was based on Snog, Marry, Avoid but with a football twist. Like basketball or basketbull.
Keep, loan, sell?
The theory being that moving into the new season, we should keep one, loan one, sell one. But the discussion is perhaps bigger than one word answer.
Calum Chambers is 23 years old. It is incredible to think that he has been at the club for 4 seasons already, having signed for Arsenal in 2014 for £16 million as a 19-year-old.
“His mature performance defied his youthful years” was how he was described after an early game. Following a strong start to the season, Chambers was nominated for the Golden Boy Award 2014, alongside international teammates Raheem Sterling, Luke Shaw and John Stones. It also saw him win 3 England caps (starting twice) at the back end of 2014.
Players returning to the club saw him push out to right back to cover Hector Bellerin. And this is where his Arsenal career stuttered.
Exposed for a lack of pace, I remember one game he was absolutely destroyed by Jefferson Montero against Swansea. It also destroyed his confidence to such an extent that come the 2015 FA Cup Final he was not even in the match day squad.
The next season, he struggled to make an impact before being loaned out for the 2016/17 season to Middlesbrough, where he performed well at centre back in a fruitless relegation battle.
Despite good performances, Arsenal were willing to listen to offers last summer and rumoured to have accepted a bid from Crystal Palace.
This season has been a mixed bag for the Englishman with just 3 Premier League starts before the New Year. The second half of the year has seen him come back into favour with 9 Premier League appearances.
In recent weeks, he has forced his way into the side ahead of Rob Holding, and performed well. He has also covered Hector Bellerin at right back a couple of times.
Having signed a new contract this season – more to protect his sell on value than anything else – his career this summer is in the balance.
He is still young, but can no longer really be talked about as a youngster. Having already done the loan thing in 2016, Arsenal have a simple choice. Keep or sell.
If Arsenal keep him, I imagine it will be more as cover for Bellerin at right back than high up on the list of centre backs.
Like Calum Chambers, Rob Holding’s Arsenal career got off to a solid start, to the point where last summer, everyone was happy to keep Holding and sell Chambers. This year he has not kicked on.
Mainly due to a lack of game time, Holding has stagnated this season. He probably could have done with spending it on loan. Instead, he turns 23 in September and is in desperate need of minutes. The question arises as to whether he will get those minutes in 2018/19?
Just yesterday (after I wrote this blog) Holding signed a new long term deal with Arsenal, so he is clearly in the plans for the future.
He is currently competing with Calum Chambers as 3rd choice defender in the squad (RIP Mertescaker). If, as expected, Arsenal sign a new senior defender, that pushes the pair to compete for 4th choice defender.
Would being 4th choice really give him the game time to develop? I really do not know.
Maybe we have to accept that Rob Holding is never going to be better than Canavarro. That he is an inexpensive, home-grown 4th choice centre back providing adequate cover for the 3 ahead. A similar role to that which Wes Brown / Johnny Evans played for Manchester United?
We are never going to be a Manchester City, having a £40m centre back as first choice (and another on loan). We need to be more sensible than that. Holding is an adequate 4th choice player. With Chambers covering right back, there is space for both Englishmen as reserve team players.
The only question around Holding is the new boy, Konstantinos Mavropanos.
After the drop in form of Chambers and Holding after impressive debuts, you thin kwe as a fan base would have learnt.
Do not hype up a player after a single game.
But that is what is borderline happening with Mavropanos after his impressive debut against Manchester United.
The Greek lad (as he will herewith be known) is just 20 years old, a similar age to the others when they started their Arsenal careers. He put in a strong and competent performance against Man U. But we need to let him develop in his own time.
At 6ft 4in he certainly has the size to be a Premier League defender, but Arsenal need to learn their mistakes from Chambers and Holding and ensure he gets the game time to continue his development.
Originally the plan was to loan him out to Germany for the second half of this season. That plan was dropped when he was named on the bench for the League Cup semi-final fixture against Chelsea.
Instead of 6 months on loan, he has spent his time in the Premier League 2, developing along nicely. The concern is what happens next year.
If next season, he sits as 4th or 5th choice centre back, playing in the League Cup and the odd Premier League game, he will be no better a player than he is now. His most important years of development and learning would have been wasted, like it has been with Holding and Chambers.
There is only so much you can learn on the training pitch. You truly develop as a player by playing games. No matter what level those games are at, just play 90 minutes every weekend. Therefore it is important that Mavropanos is playing somewhere next season.
Give him a good pre-season at Arsenal. Let him get some game time against Atletico Madrid in Singapore, PSG or Chelsea, then when he comes back, send him on loan to a team where he will play most of the season.
Whether that be abroad in Germany, in the Premier League, or even in the Championship. He just needs to be playing.
Arsenal should follow the blue print that Chelsea wrote for Andreas Christensen, who went on loan to Borussia Monchengladbach for 2 seasons, playing nearly every game. He went as a teenage prodigy, returned ready for first team action.
Preferably I would like Mavropanos to go to Germany. A year out of the limelight of obsessive fans. Perform their for 32 league games and then return.
If we get it right, come the season after, when Laurent Koscielny is put down, he could be in a position to fight for a first team place.
And there I go, after 1 game, already claiming he could be a first team player in 12 months.
The key is to let him develop, let him get game time.
My thoughts on this blog began with me thinking “we can not keep hold of Calum Chambers, Rob Holding, Konstantinos Mavropanos next season, one has to be sold” but in writing this, I seem to have come up with a solution.
We buy a new first choice centre back. He is partnered by Laurent Koscielny or Shkodran Mustafi. The other of which is then back up (rotating in depending on opponents / injuries). Rob Holding then becomes decent, home grown cover for the 3 of them as 4th choice centre back.
Calum Chambers then backs them up as 5th choice centre back, and covers Hector Bellerin at right back. Mavropanos is then sent on loan for a year.
Role forward a year, summer of 2019, Koscielny will be nearing his 34th birthday. He will be pout down. Mustafi would have either made it or not made it. If it is the former, then we have our new centre back partnering Mustafi, with Holding and Mavropanos backing them up.
If Mustafi has not made it, another new centre back is bought in, with Holding and Mavropanos still backing them up.
We just need to get the development and expected squad roles right.
Keenos
Follow @KeenosAFC
Two with a chance of returning are Francis Coquelin and Danny Welbeck.
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