Should Arsenal start Jenkinson or Gabriel at West Ham?

The fact that Arsene Wenger decided to make the right back position one of his Arsenal changes during the loss to Southampton in the EFL cup, despite the fact that we were two goals down at the time and he did have some forward options on the bench, tells you that the starter Carl Jenkinson was not having his best of games.

In fact he had a bit of a shocker and with the two players in front of him in the pecking order, Hector Bellerin and Matthieu Debuchy, being out of contention through injury that gives the manager a problem as he prepares the Gunners for the trip to face West ham in the Premier League on Sunday.

Wenger has already spoken about how it could take Jenkinson some time to get back to his level after such a long spell on the sidelines and he is being cautious with the defender, but should he give him another chance this weekend or should the boss go back to Gabriel to fill in?

On Jenkinson’s side is that he is more attack minded and I think Slaven Bilic will set West Ham to be hard to beat. Perhaps the nature of the opposition as well, because Carl spent most of the last two seasons playing for them and that should help him to be comfortable.

Going against him is the need for Arsenal to stop the home side building up a head of steam or getting a vital first goal and Gabriel’s defensive abilities would be better suited to that. Either one of these options do not appear to be ideal, so what would you do?

Bob.

7 Comments

    1. You are SUPER right. If he’s deemed too young for this game, try Alex Oxlade Chamberlain. Neither Jenko nor Gabriel are perfect for this role. But I must say you shared my thought, Maitland – Niles put no foot wrong the last time he played in that position. And he gave a better account of himself than Jenko or Gabriel had done this season. Wenger should remember how he discovered Hector Bellerin in a crisis time like this.

  1. There is no need to gamble at time of the league, let give Maitland-Niles a chance and i know he will perform well in that position than other crop of players for that position. He will mount competition on Bellerin. It was this kind of situation that give birth to Bellerin we all are praising today. He can do same. And moreover Ramsey should not made the squad to West Ham, so that we can avoid dropping of points as this time of the league. The pairing of Coquline and Xhaka should be entertain and the best player should be use no room for favouritism.

  2. On the short term
    our right side defence becomes weak with bellerin out. Last time out that’s where west ham tortured us mostly with cresswell delivering the cross. He is out this time. Monreal is no longer level of last season and added is iwobi not up defensively.

    I would opt for Holding. Remember stories when he joined, he can play RB. he is level headed and matured, has speed and wont make the kind of reckless tackle Gabriel did in the closing stages after the 3rd goal last week.

    In the month of Jan – elneny will be out, so will be cazorla with surgery scheduled. qn then will be should arsenal go out and buy in jan? Ramsey gets crocked, ramsey xhaka cant be played. And we will be left with coq-xhaka combine that doesn’t work. OX at rb can be used to go all out when we need to get a goal in closing stages, not for whole match. Guy doesn’t have it defensively. Do we play OX centrally ? or will he keep making those runs without passing at the crucial moment and give ball away ?

    So holding will do the job at RB in my opinion. big qn is with us unable to recall wilshere or Jon Toral do we buy in jan or hope o and ramsey will deliver.

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