Arsenal’s defence let them down again as they gave up a one-goal lead to lose 2-1 to Tottenham in the latest north London derby.
The Gunners had taken the lead through a very fine Alexandre Lacazette goal, and they were in control of possession in the game.
However, a mistake by Sead Kolasinac and David Luiz gifted Spurs an equaliser just three minutes after Arsenal had scored.
It was a familiar story of Arsenal’s defence letting them down again. The Lilywhites would eventually get the winner via Toby Alderweireld with some help from poor set-piece defending from the Gunners.
John Hartson watched the game like most fans and as he saw the Gunners struggle to keep their lead and earn a win that their possession deserved, he came to the conclusion that the Gunners need to sell their entire back three.
Mikel Arteta has been playing with a back three in recent games. David Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac were the central defenders and Hartson reckons that they are not good enough for the Gunners.
‘Ideally, I’d like to replace all three, [Shkodran] Mustafi, Kolasinac and [David] Luiz, but I don’t think he’s going to replace all three,’ Hartson told Stadium Astro.
‘Rob Holding does okay when he comes in, still relatively young, I think the two full-backs [Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin] are decent, [Bernd] Leno in goal, I like [Dani] Ceballos, [Lucas] Torreira, [Granit] Xhaka he seems to like.
‘For me, I would get rid of all three [defenders] if I possibly could but I don’t think that’s going to happen, but, all three of them I’m not sure they’d get in of any of the top four teams.’
It really is hard to argue with Hartson on this one, none of those three is good enough for a supposed top-six team.
