Jakub Kiwior joined Arsenal after establishing himself as a solid centre-back for the Poland national team and Spezia.
His impressive performance at the last World Cup secured his move to the Emirates, where he knew he would have to work hard to earn playing time.
Arsenal’s first-choice centre-back pairing is Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba, making it difficult for Kiwior to break into the team in his preferred position.
As a result, Ben White has been deployed as a right-back, and Kiwior has been used as a left-back.
Although the Poland international is more defensively aware than Oleksandr Zinchenko in that position and has featured regularly, he is not a natural left-back, and sometimes his performance reflects this.
Martin Keown noticed this during the game against Wolves and believes that Kiwior is not yet comfortable in that position.
He said on Premier League Productions:
“Kiwior at left-back, it maybe feels like he isn’t completely ready.
“But he is another central defender playing out of position. Tomiyasu wasn’t available.
“We will have to look and assess at the end of the season to see which area he wants to strengthen in. That’s an area where Tierney was allowed to go out on loan and Zinchenko has had injury issues, so they have been decimated a little bit. Timber out with an ACL and Tomiyasu out again.
“He hasn’t really got any reliability in that left-back spot.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Kiwior has done well in the last few weeks for a player who is out of position. If he keeps getting chances there, he will master the role.
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He’s better than Zinchencko
I don’t know why it has took this long for Keown to see how Kiwior struggles at LB. He is an accident waiting to happen. But to be fair to him, he isn’t a LB.
Why do you assume it has taken “this long”!
Simply because it is not public knowledge that Keown has said nothing, to our knowledg,e before now, does not give your assumption reason to be true. You are merely making conjecture without ANY evidence to back it up.
Kiwior every day over Zinc
but Kiwior has had some mixed performances, and do understand when people feel there is an error waiting there
Tomy seems to be the new ‘sick note’ Partey
can Timber step in at LB, not his natural position
forget Tierney
LB must be on our list for summer targets, sell Tierney and Zinc to part pay for a top class genuine LB
in any case, whichever way you view, whoever plays LB they are the weakest link in our back line and will rightly be targeted by opponents
hopefully Chelsea is not where we come unstuck
Imo the signs were very good that timber would have been a top player for us at lb – he appears the type of player who can excel in a number of positions, including lb. The injury throws a spanner in the works as we can’t know how well he’ll recover, and we have to expect setbacks when he returns to the team
He’s never going to be a great lb, but he’s far from a bad one – as good as you’d realistically expect a back up fullback to be, frankly. He is a good cb, though, however I think Gabriel’s form will force him to leave before long. Shame, but it is what it is.
I suspect Timber could be used as a DM where he played for Ajax occasionally.He is very quick over the ground and a very good man marker.If he was fully match fit I would detail him to “look after” Cole Palmer for example.As it is Rice may be allocated these duties tomorrow.
Maybe that could be the reason why Arsenal is looking at Real Madrid Camavinga, the midfielder looks solid in the left back role.
Ask Camavinga as a leftback “who is Lamine Yamal”