Where Have All The Left Backs Gone?

As the season draws to a close, no matter whether we win the league or not, I’m happy with where Arsenal are as a club. Although, I’d better get my feelings off my chest before Championship Sunday.

I cannot help but feel that our left backs cost us the league. Football seems symmetric to the untrained eye but really it’s never been more asymmetric, and no position exemplifies that like left back. And no team has suffered because of their left back as much as Arsenal have. Zinchenko is our best offensive option, but comes with very clear (though sometimes overblown) defensive limitations. Z just doesn’t have the instincts of a defensive left back, in fact Z doesn’t have many instincts of a defender at all. On some European nights he delighted us with an inch perfect left footed pass that scythed through a low block but on other nights he was taken to the cleaners by a virtually unknown European right back. In England, he was profligate with his passing and rendered unplayable versus the top right backs in England (unlike left back, attacking right backs seem to be sprouting all over England like an unwelcome disease). Our other options are all giants of men, who in their hearts know not whether they can string a pass together with the same careless abandon that Z can. Kiwior and Tomiyasu are both impressive defensive specimens but their quality on the ball shows that they’re really centre backs in hiding. As Gary Neville said (I think), if you’re taller than 6 feet you’d sooner play basketball than fullback. Which is good news since our secret weapon, all 5 feet 10 inches of Jurrien Timber will be available for selection next season. Though Timber will have to fight off doubts that he too is just a smaller centre back with incisive passing , such as he never showed in Holland.

Arsenal is not unique in their search for a quality left back. The famine of quality players in the position meant that only Destiny Udogie (of all people) was the only consistently featured “true” left back in the top 6 in England. That Gary Neville’s selection of him to his Premier League Team of the Season was met with raised eyebrows should tell you all need to know about the position. Manchester City have effectively given up on the position, playing centre backs (Akanji, Ake, Gvardiol) at the position, I don’t know that they’ve had a true left back on the roster in a while. Due apologies to Gvardiol, a goal in Madrid does not a full back make. Andy Robertson stands out as the best left back in England (for some years now) and a true representation of what the position can become when played with the fluency and elegance of someone who has both a left foot, football intelligence and about 3-4 sets of lungs.

Across Europe things don’t look any better. If you’d gone to get a cup of tea during the one forward run that Mendy made during their dalliance with City you’d struggle to name Madrid’s left back. You’d struggle to name his replacement too. A certain Welshman could walk into the squad right now if he played his boyhood position. I’ve always had a soft spot for Os Navegadores’ Nuno Mendes, he’s an incredible player, much like Robertson, but Sancho kept him up at night and ran rings around him during the day. Alphonso Davies stands out at the best player at the position in the world, how ironic then that it was his goal that spelt the beginning of the end of our European adventure. If a Scotsman and a Canadian are the best at left back in world football right now, surely our Brazilian cousins and Portuguese ancestors must be positively rotating in their graves.

All in all, I think left backs have fallen off since the glory days of the “wing back”, we still miss you Roberto Carlos. Arsenal have always fielded some greats at the position, from the flamboyant English left back of my childhood, Ashley Cole to the Frenchman Gael Clichy. Honorable mention to Patrice Evra and Leighton-bloody-Baines. Maybe the position has an evolution coming or maybe a mass extinction to be replaced by soulless centre backs who couldn’t make it. Or maybe we’ll figure out a way to play strikers at the position so that when we have the ball they can beat the trap and run into crosses. Oh wait…never mind.