Much has been discussed about Arsenal’s frailties in defence, which have been highlighted, most recently, in the games against Stoke City, Anderlecht and Manchester United. These defensive problem have led to the Gunners dropping important points and losing ground to the Premier League leaders Chelsea FC, and coming second in their Champions league group – something which will no doubt come back to bite us on the bottom come Monday’s draw (everyone buzzing for Bayern Munich again, yeah?)

But why has it got to this stage again? Why are we not capable of holding onto leads? Why do we continually throw away strong positions? Why do our defenders, at times, look no better than Sunday League standard?


The first reason is that we have a lack of defensively-minded footballers in the squad. The mainstays of the team are captain Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini who have both struggled especially in the big games against the top teams. These two experienced players are arguably in the twilight of their playing years and lack the strength and pace to cope with top offensive players. Both have also previously had discipline problems, this season they have collected in total seven yellow cards. This figure is not that bad, but in previous seasons they have had quite a few red cards.

Another reason is that the team has suffered many long-term injuries to defenders this season. Mathieu Debuchy and Laurent Koscienly have only recently made their comebacks from being out of action for around three months. Without these two key defenders, the boss has relied on inexperienced youngsters Hecotr Bellerin, Calum Chambers, along with Spaniard Nacho Monreal who has played in an unfamiliar role at centre-back. The inexperience has led to defensive mistakes in games including at Stoke last Saturday.

Thirdly, there has been on many occasions been a big gap between attack and defence. When the Gunners have been attacking, we have been caught cold with people such as Calum Chambers and Kieran Gibbs not tracking back, after attacking on the wings. This has left the likes of Mertesacker exposed due to his lack of pace, this can be demonstrated by Wayne Rooney’s obligatory goal against Arsenal. In this instance, Arsenal had been caught by having too many players in the other opposition’s half, and it allowed Rooney to finish off a sweeping counter-attacking move by United.

The penultimate reason is there seems to be no leaders in the current team. The vice-captain Per Mertesacker, who has played almost every game, has not lead the team well enough. He has not shown the form of last season, and has looked very vulnerable at times. The team in their peak in the early to the mid-2000s had many strong and expressive leaders including Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira, to help the team with strong tackling and being imposing figures.

My fifth and final reason is the manager has not replaced the experienced duo Thomas Vermaelen and Bacary Sagna who left last summer. Calum Chambers and Debuchy were brought in to replace them but only buying two defenders was a mistake as injuries have highlighted the lack of defensive options the north London outfit have. Overall, Chambers has slotted in well, but with Debuchy and Koscienly out for long periods it has caused a defensive headache for Wenger.

Who to buy?

The most obvious and best option would be Sami Khedira who would be available for fairly cheap as Real Madrid will want to recoup some money back, as this German would be a free agent in the summer. Other possible options could be Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels, Bayern Munich centre-back Mehdi Benatia or even the defensively-minded Luis Gustavo who currently plies his trade with VfL Wolfsburg.