Now as we all know, Wenger has shown immense faith in Gibbs over the years and rightly so.
Gibbs is finally beginning to show presence on the pitch, something desperately needed from a roaming full back in the Premier League. His confidence on the ball has greatly improved in this season and in the last one, as well as his ability to both cut inside and link up play that way or his pace allowing him to get to the by-line and send in a swinging cross. It would appear Gibbs is becoming the complete left back.
So what does that mean for Nacho?
I didn’t touch onto the defensive side of Gibbs and concentrated more on what he offers going forward. However after the Dortmund game fans are starting to ask questions if Gibbs provides enough defensive solidity. So far in all the games he has started in the league we have managed only 1 clean sheet. Obviously he can’t be blamed entirely because individual errors from Koscielny (Sunderland/Villa) and Sagna (Swansea) have led to us conceding. But perhaps its his desire to get too involved in attacking and space left in behind that makes us more prone to concede goals.
Monreal, on the other hand, was part of a number of make shift defences last season that kept hard earned clean sheets against tricky opponents. Stoke at home, Sunderland away (with Ramsey, Sagna & Per as the other 3 defenders following Jenkinson’s dismissal), Swansea & QPR away being prime examples. Not to mention other starts in hard games such as Fulham & West Brom away that we importantly won. In his first 6 months Monreal was thrown neck deep into the depths of the Premier League and proved a more than capable alternative to Gibbs defensively.
Now onto his forward play, Monreal’s most notable contributions were his goal against Swansea followed by his assist to Cazorla at the Emirates to beat Villa 2-1. Overall he provided good support for Cazorla who played wide left in almost every game following Swansea at home in the FA Cup but perhaps he helped our attack more by defending than attacking.
Monreal was rarely caught out of position when he played, was very good in the air and came out on top in various one on ones against the likes of Lukaku, Townsend, Sessegnon & Nathan Dyer. I think its highly possible that his efficiency in defence and making attacking a luxury once his primary job was done made the entire back 4 better because they were more compact & had less space around them. This also meant that Cazorla, Podolski, Giroud, Ramsey, Rosicky & Arteta had a larger platform to perform on because Monreal stayed out of the way essentially. And by defending deeper it meant there was more space out wide on the left flank.
Overall I feel that we are truly blessed with 2 very good left backs and that we should rotate where possible. The last thing we need is to overplay Gibbs for example and then have pressure on Monreal to keep fit.
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Photo by Ronnie Macdonald