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.