Arsenal has struggled at the back this season and it is understandable that we have been experimenting with our defending.
Mikel Arteta is still looking for the perfect defensive partnership for the club, and he has also experimented with a number of defensive setups in our recent games.
He has used three at the back for our past few games with David Luiz, Sead Kolasinac and Shkodran Mustafi partnering each other in the new-look back-three, though he did use Kieran Tierney in that role against Liverpool.
We have enjoyed different success and failures with the setup so far.
I assumed at first that Arteta is employing a back-three so that he can get the best out of David Luiz, who thrived in that setup with Chelsea before now.
However, I think that experiment should stop now because we don’t have the right quality defenders to get it done well.
Kolasinac has looked so out of place in the new system that the defender might become our weak link and a target for the opposing team.
Luiz has thrived in a back-three before, but the Brazilian is well past his best now and he cannot be trusted to put in a consistent performance for us.
Mustafi has gotten better under Arteta, but the German remains a bag of nerves, always looking like he would make a mistake.
When we have a natural left-sided centre-back like Pablo Mari available in the team, then we could look to start with a back-three, for now I think we should end the experiment.
An article from Ime
