I suspect most observers of the Premier League would agree that Arsenal have one of the deepest squads in Europe at the moment. In home victories against Leeds and Lille, the Gunners have been able to use their bench effectively to win games, with Bruno Guimaraes scoring the winner against Leeds after coming on as a second half sub, while Bukayo Saka got an assist and a goal within minutes of coming on against Lille on Tuesday. Mikel Arteta has a lot of depth in pretty much every position. Even against Lille, with Piero Hincapie injured and the manager wanting to look after Riccardo Calafiori’s minutes, Myles Lewis Skelly played at left-back. Myles has played for England at left-back and is essentially Arsenal’s third option for that role. World Cup winners Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi are regularly on the subs bench. It’s a very deep squad with quality everywhere. However, probably the lowest barrier to entry into the Arsenal team at the moment is on the left wing. The failure to acquire either Morgan Rogers or Vinicius Junior in the summer have left the, well, left, looking a little short of bona fide elite quality. It’s a position that Arsenal have ‘had a pin in’ for some time now. Leandro Trossard proved to be a very strong opportunistic signing for the position in January 2023, but he was 28 when he joined and was never going to be a long-term solution. Gabriel Martinelli just didn’t quite develop as we had all hoped. Both players left the club this summer and, in truth, both departures had been in the post for a little while for different reasons. Either player might have left earlier had Arteta been able to acquire a ‘lighthouse player’ for that flank. Christos Tzolis has arrived this summer and he looks bright enough but having arrived from the Belgian league during a summer where the club still pushed for Rogers and Vinicius. That tells you that he is likely to be a good, solid player but it would be some story if he could provide the stardust of someone like Bukayo Saka, for example. In short, the left-wing position feels as though it is ‘up for grabs now’, to coin a phrase. Injury to Tzolis in the recent international break multiplies that impression. Arteta sprung a surprise by selecting Noni Madueke there against Leeds on Saturday, Arteta explained afterwards, ‘He deserves the chance that he got, and he grabbed it with both hands. ‘When I haven’t liked too much what he was doing and it was impacting the game, I made certain decisions, and he has accepted them. What he’s done is raised the level and in training he’s been the best player in the last 10 days. He gave me no option not to select him and not to play him today.’ Madueke was not selected to play for England so there may have been a sense of pragmatism to that decision. Arteta has not been inclined to play a left footer on the left side before; the Arsenal attack can lack a little dynamism and acceleration and Madueke offers that even if his end product can be variable to say the least. Eberechi Eze started on the left against Lille and the impression remains that Arteta sees Eze as more of a central player. While Madueke will play the role in a very ‘traditional’ manner, hugging the touchline and looking to engage the full-back at every opportunity, Eze prefers the half-space somewhere between a 10 and a left-winger. He scored against Lille by drifting in from the left much in the way that Trossard did so effectively. Eze and Madueke are wildly divergent profiles for the left-wing. Sometimes there is a really fine line between diversity and confusion in a squad. In one respect, having two such different players for the role creates variety; but sometimes it can just be a sign that you just have two slightly mismatched players. Eze can be too peripheral but has end product. Madueke is highly involved and engaged but lacks end product. If only we could smoosh the two profiles together, take the highly involved, high end product version and sell the low touch, no end product version to Chelsea for £80m. Arsenal don’t rotate Declan Rice with another midfielder based on attributes and individual game plans, he plays in every game because he is pretty much elite at pretty much everything pretty much all the time. Nevertheless, Eze and Madueke have to look at this as an unmissable opportunity to firmly establish themselves at Arsenal. The left-wing might not be the optimal position for either at this stage but it’s the lowest bar to getting into the Arsenal team. Interestingly, Mikel Arteta threw a small curve ball this week by suggesting that Max Dowman could undertake some leftfield experimentation. (17 is a good age to discover the album ‘Leftism.’ I perhaps wouldn’t advise Max to enjoy it with some of the, ahem, ‘enhancements’ that I did). ‘We haven’t seen much of Max on the left, and I think especially the way we have involved him and trained him in those two positions (centrally or on the right), probably at the moment it’s easier (to play there). But with the talent that he has, if we need to throw him in a new position at some point. I think he will have the capacity to adapt to it.’ The phrasing ‘probably at the moment it’s easier (to play there)’ from Arteta is telling. He knows that is the space in the team that is open and it would certainly prove incredibly convenient if Max Dowman fit the left-wing slipper. If he did, that position would be his for at least a decade and sooner or later we will have to confront the fact that Saka and Dowman can’t both play on the right wing. But just because Dowman developing into a world class left-winger would be convenient it doesn’t mean it will definitely happen or that it would be best for him. It reminds me a little of Ethan Nwaneri, if he could develop his game to become a top-class striker, that role could be his in the Arsenal team for the next decade. But these are humans we are dealing with, not Tetris pieces. But even if Dowman did not nail the left-wing position in the long-term, it could be a good route to more regular minutes in the short-term. Lewis-Skelly has enjoyed a solid apprenticeship at left-back, where there were minutes available, before properly breaking into his preferred midfield position. Even now, his ability to play there is keeping him involved and in the team, as we saw on Tuesday. I have to say I rather suspect we are just stuck in a relative limbo with the left-wing position until an elite option is parachuted in via the transfer market. Until then, Eze, Madueke and Dowman should be eyeing the position up as a launchpad for their Arsenal careers. It’s the lowest bar to clear to get into this Arsenal team. The post Leftism- Arsenal’s left wing issues present opportunity appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.