Arsenal face Villarreal in the Europa League semi-final this week and the left-back role is going to be a massive problem for manager Mikel Arteta.
The club’s first-choice left-back Kieran Tierney has been out with an injury and the Scottish international will also not be available for selection in the second leg of the semi-final.
And in his absence Granit Xhaka has been playing in that role for the past couple of weeks, with mixed results obviously. While the Swiss international has done pretty well against the smaller sides but Villarreal really exploited that area of the pitch in the first leg.
The Arsenal boss does not have any conventional left-backs who can replace Tierney in that role but a lot of people has urged Arteta to use right-back Cedric Soares in that role.
The manager while talking about rotation in the left-back role said in his press conference: “It’s been one of the reasons, because of the way we wanted to play and the players around. We have managed to get some clean sheets since he’s been playing there and that’s something that didn’t happen for 13 games. He gives something different to the team.
“He’s been a bit unfortunate because he played some good games as a right back as well. Ten we had the injury of Kieran and he played some as a left back and we were training with him as a left-back.
“We could have given him more opportunities, but it’s true that Calum came in and did really well. We are training this afternoon so we will see how everybody is.”
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Cedric Soares has played as a left-back nine times this season(as per TransferMarkt) so he is more than capable of handling that role in such a big match.
Granit Xhaka, on the other hand, becomes the team’s biggest weakness when playing as a left full-back and if Mikel Arteta is not smart enough this week then Villarreal will make merry down that flank once again.
Arsenal’s European hopes hang on this one single game so their manager cannot afford to be blunt and keen on experimenting, like he did in the first leg.
