Krystian Bielik could be on his way back to his former club, Legia Warsaw, on loan as the Polish defender slips further down the pecking order and further away from a first team chance at Arsenal.
Then then 17 year old joined the Gunners for a fee of £2m from the Polish side in January 2015, with Arsene Wenger so impressed with his potential that he said he’d go straight into the first team squad.
“Yes, he will go into the first-team squad,” he said. “He’s a defensive midfielder, 6ft 2in , he has a good energy level and technical level.
“It’s a gamble but, on what we saw, it’s worth to take the gamble. It’s an awful lot of money for a player if he doesn’t succeed. If he does succeed, then it’s cheap.”
Krystian Bielik is wanted on loan by his old club Legia Warsaw. Talks on-going #afc
— David Hytner (@DaveHytner) January 17, 2018
However, three years down the line he has made just two first team appearances, both of them as a substitute in the League Cup, and despite arriving as a midfielder, has been re-purposed as a centre-half. He has also endured significant absences through injury which have hampered his development.
The arrival this month of 20 year old Greek defender Konstantinos Mavropanos appears to have made Bielik’s chances of a first team breakthrough even more unlikely, and loan move makes sense at this stage of his career.
However, the situation could be complicated by a recent hamstring injury which could reportedly see him sidelined for up to five weeks.
Good, let him play some senior football. He might actually get some more DM experience as we seem to make everyone play CB now… Or some other unnatural position.
Would be a backwards step, for how good Poland are right now they have an extremely poor national league (which I’m sure they’d admit!)
Should be brave enough to try at least the Championship.
Yes Polish national league is very poor, mind you Legia Warsaw have just bought Eduardo our fox in the box 🙂
It is a poor national league but it is also a very physical league, which is certainly good experience for a young player at CB or defensive midfield. He needs first team football and a stint in his homeland with his former club may be exactly what he needs to get his career back on track.
Have to feel for him, it must be fairly alarming being in his position. On and off the injury table, he knows that we’ve bought in that Greek centre half. Its definitely starting to look like its make or break.
Good luck to him. If things don’t work out we should get 5m minimum for him, assuming he has a long term contract and that wouldn’t be a loss on our investment…
Or Stan’s franchise will have made a profit. Damn it.
Another poorly managed and coached DM. Sad.
He needs to stay fit first.
Move him back to his real position. Who knows he might be an “internal solution”
At this point I had almost forgotten he was still with the club. If he hasn’t made a breakthrough yet to be included in the squad as Willock, Neilsen and AMN have then I don’t hold out hope for him ever really being a first team player.
Please for the love of God please play him as a DM. This CB conversion has done him no good at all. Kid looked so complete as a DM, great passing and tackling and general mobility. This arsenal programme to turn any athletic yet technical DMs into CBs it’s really unnecessary (and also in its entire time, has never worked).
Please Wenger, give him the best chance of development and play him as he is. He even looked head and shoulders above AMN as a DM at academy’s level.
Totally agree, he looked really good as a DM and I think he’s being wasted as a CB. Hopefully someone somewhere sees sense and puts him back in his proper position.
One wonders how his development would have gone if he had stayed there. Perhaps I’m churlish, but I wonder whether the games and the coaching would have done him more good than Arsenal under Wenger.