There are some certainties in life – death, taxes, Harry Kane scoring penalties and Oleksandr Zinchenko suffering yet another calf strain that would rule him out for a couple of weeks. With Takehiro Tomiyasu also having his own fitness issues, Mikel Arteta deployed Jakub Kiwior in the inverted left back role in the narrow defeat to Fulham.
Kiwior, like the rest of his teammates, struggled badly in the awful loss at Craven Cottage. In the 45 minutes he played before he was yanked off at half time, he add an xA of 0.01, completed 24 of his 26 passes (92 percent), made 35 touches, made one pass to the final third, won two out of his three attempted tackles, made one clearance and one interception. In term of his duels (you know Arteta loves duels), he won three of his four ground duels but lost the only aerial duel he competed for.
His lack of awareness leading to the first goal was saddening, as we expected better, but it is what it is, I guess.
Since his arrival from Spezia close to a year ago, the Polish defender has been a part-bit squad player and has featured sparingly under Mikel Arteta. However, he has been deployed across several positions – his favored center back slot, and left back, where he features consistently for the Polish national team.
With Jurrien Timber out with a long term knee injury, Zinchenko out with a calf injury and Tomiyasu off to Qatar to represent Japan in the Asian Cup, Arsenal has only Kiwior as its senior option in the left back slot. The exciting youngster, Lino Souza, can be utilized, and there have been whispers of a potential Kieran Tierney recall from Real Sociedad.
I don’t know whether the terms of the loan contract includes a recall, but I highly doubt that. Tierney himself is an injury-prone player, having suffered a long term injury with Sociedad earlier in the campaign, but he has done well to nail a regular place in the side on his return to full fitness and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to return to Arsenal to become a backup option again.
Thankfully, Arsenal has only three games in January – the FA Cup Third Round clash with Liverpool this weekend, before hosting Crystal Palace on January 20th and the visit to the City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest at the end of the month. There hasn’t been any concrete feedback on the duration of Zinchenko’s injury at the moment, but I am fairly confident that Kiwior can deputize for the three games without hassles. This is not like the December period, were the games came thick and fast.
Arseblog touched on the Kiwior issue and was in the opinion that we play to his strengths, which is not him inverting to midfield, but playing like a traditional left back, which will involve a change of approach from the way we play. I believe it’s worth exploring.
For better or worse, we are stuck with Kiwior in the left back role, and we can only hope he makes the best use of this opportunity to stake a claim for a first-term berth in the role. It’s not like Zinchenko has been lighting any fireworks with his recent performances.
Sayonara.
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