One thing that is almost guaranteed following an Arsenal game is one of our former players voicing their opinions and generally they are either negative or just harebrained.
On this occasion Martin Keown has expressed his view on the sort of team Unai Emery should field in the Europa League second leg against Valencia next Thursday and while his viewpoint is not negative it can be categorised as harebrained.
‘That third goal is so important,’ Keown told BT Sport.
‘Valencia, in fairness, I thought they were trying to settle for 2-1 and it’s backfired on them big time’
‘Still of course Arsenal have got some work to do in this tie. Those two front players have to play’
‘Already now he’s turning to look at the selection. The 11 that finished that game should start the next one. ‘I actually thought it was better than maybe the team that started. Take nothing away from Ozil and his performance early on. ‘But you’re going away now to a very difficult away game. That planning has to start now.’
So, Keown is saying start with Henrikh Mkhitaryan in place of Mesut Ozil, and Nacho Monreal in for Laurent Koscielny while keeping Sokratis and Mustafi in the starting line up.
Think about that.
Keown has obviously forgotten that Mkhitaryan has been a lot worse than Ozil on a regular basis this season and to consider dropping Koscielny, who was far better last night than Sokratis or Mustafi, just tells me that he really has poor judgement in these matters.
In fact, I am of the opinion that Keown is being controversial for the sake of it simply because he has nothing to criticize the team for.
In my view, Emery needs to go with the same sort of team that he sent out last night and while I am not necessarily advocating Ozil starts next week at the Mestalla I am certainly saying that given a choice I would rather Ozil over Mkhitaryan.
As for dropping Koscielny and keeping Mustafi that is just ridiculous and undermines any credibility that Keown has as a football pundit, which was not great to start with.
But that is just my opinion.
What is yours? Is Keown right?