At the official announcement of Mathieu Debuchy's signing Arsene Wenger spent a good proportion of the afternoon defending Carl Jenkinson's position in the Arsenal squad. It seems as though there is concern, at least from outside the club, that Debuchy's signing and interest in Atletico's Javier Manquillo could mean that another season passes by without any decent first team action for the young Englishman.
However it's not just Jenkinson that we should be concerned for.
I’m all for the fantastic signings Arsene Wenger has made already this transfer window. Alexis Sanchez and Mathieu Debuchy are exactly the types of players required, experienced, international players who have played at top sides throughout their careers.
However it was little over a year ago when Arsene Wenger gave a press conference defending his decision to field a young side that featured a large proportion of players from the UK.
At one point our match day squad included Gibbs, Jenkinson, Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain. The promise at the time was that Arsenal would provide the England squad with its ‘spine’, inferring that the way these players were progressing and likely to regularly feature in Arsenal’s starting 11 they would become integral cogs in the national side.
Looking at the recent world cup it is painfully apparent that Wenger has been proved wrong in this prediction. Gibbs and Jenkinson weren’t even taken to Brazil, which in Gibbs’ case is a travesty and would have likely prevented the mauling England’s left flank received against Italy. Jenkinson perhaps isn’t quite there yet, but with the arrival of Debuchy and our links with Manquilla it would appear that Wenger doesn’t think the young Englishman is ready either.
Of the two players that did make the trip to South America, Wilshere played a bit part, whilst Oxlade-Chamberlain ... Hardly stalwarts of the England side. Hodgson chose to go with a lethal combination of Liverpool players who have absolutely no experience of choking on the big stage, absolutely none.. and Manchester United players who, with the exception of Wellbeck didn’t seem to want the pressure. Perhaps this was an apology to Liverpool for his time as manager and an early application to the Old Trafford job before Van Gaal’s appointment.
Either way Arsenal’s representation at the World’s biggest sporting event was poor from an English perspective. Thankfully we have a few Germans knocking around to make up the balance.
In my opinion this goes some way to explaining Wenger’s gushing appraisal of Jenkinson at the official announcement of Debuchy’s signing. The manager was full of positivity regarding Jenkinson’s prospects at making the first team, which could be a way of saying ‘someone make us an offer, he’s honestly not that bad’ or could be a way of defending his previous statement made a year ago.
Should Arsenal sign another central midfielder where will this leave Wilshere and Oxlade-Chamberlain? In my opinion the two have already been demoted to the bench with the arrival of Sanchez. As explained in this article Wenger cannot afford to leave either Ozil, Sanchez or Ramsey out of our starting line-up and once Arteta, Cazorla and Giroud are added I cannot see a way to bring in either of our two English stars.
Podolski has been Wenger’s go to impact sub and is arguably the right man to bring on when we need a goal as he can score from range. Rosicky, too, despite his age proved invaluable last season even sparking interest from German giants Bayern Munich.
In Wenger's preferred 4-3-3 formation the starting midfield is likely to be: Arteta, Ramsey, Ozil with a forward three of Walcott, Sanchez and Giroud.
In Walcott's absence for what is likely to be the first two months of the season, you would expect Wenger to go with Cazorla on the left flank where he has deployed the Spaniard countless times last season.
Let's hope that Wilshere, the Ox and co. can get used to playing a supporting role this season and that it doesn't come back to bite us when no doubt several clubs will be sniffing around our homegrown stars.
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