Nacho Monreal is happy to be selected as one of Arsenal’s captains for the upcoming season and wants to use his experience to help the club’s next generation.
After six-and-a-half years at the Emirates, the Spaniard has been asked to step up to a deputy position this summer following the departures of Aaron Ramsey and Petr Cech and led the players out against Fiorentina earlier in the week.
With Laurent Koscielny likely to depart, the left-back is set to support Granit Xhaka, currently the front-runner for the armband, with Mesut Ozil. Unai Emery has hinted that two more players could also get the nod.
“To be one of the captains makes me happy and makes me feel like I have more responsibility,” Monreal told press ahead of tonight’s friendly with Real Madrid.
“I have been playing for Arsenal for almost seven years and I think step by step I am feeling more important inside the group, and I am trying to help the younger players because a long time ago I was one of them!
“Now it is my moment to teach them and to give some advice to them. I want to feel important and to feel involved in the group.”
Nacho was also asked about his tactical preferences. After a year of Emery switching between a three and four-man backlines he maintains that he doesn’t care too much, so long as the boss is pleased with his performances.
“The most important thing is if he [Emery] feels happy when we play!” he said.
“We have different options in the team. We have played a few games with a back four, we played good games with a back three. It all depends on what team we play against because every game is completely different.
“Sometimes we need to play with a back four and be more defensive because the other team they have the possession so we need to defend better. In other games we are going to have the possession so it’s better playing with three defenders and to have more offensive players.
“It depends on the game, it depends on how we play and we need to be happy and believe in what we are doing and give our best.”
We think Nacho is a great choice to be one of the captains. It does also suggest that his future at the club is secure for at least another year whether we recruit another left-back or not this summer.
Good on Monreal.
Really hoping he has a better season than last, his solid consistency has always been a big strength but last season saw a lot of errors, he was far from the worst but when others are cocking up really want your dependable players to stay dependable
A great left back and CB backup for us. A left back Sagna.
Good lad, dependable, not unlike Winterburn in that regard.
Is Alaba a realistic option? Seems Arsenal are bored chasing Tierney. Unfortunately I don’t think either Monreal or Kolasinac are particularly good options at left back anymore.
Signing a 22 Yr old who’ll have missed around 300 days and counting in the last 3 seasons, certainly isn’t something I’ll lose any sleep over. Hip problems Jun 17, 2019 Aug 12, 2019 estimated 56 days out Groin Surgery May 7, 2019 Jun 9, 2019 33 days out Hip Injury Apr 19, 2019 May 2, 2019 13 days out Cals Sclerosis Mar 31, 2019 Apr 5, 2019 5 days out Hip Injury Dec 7, 2018 Feb 22, 2019 77 days out Knock Nov 15, 2018 Nov 22, 2018 7 days out Calf Injury Mar 16, 2018 Apr 7, 2018… Read more »
You can’t legislate who is fit and who is injured. Bellerin and Holding almost have had 300 days in 2018- 2019 already. Seems Thierny does not get very big injuries. Liverpool didn’t make Ox injury free and they had Sturridge who was perhaps the most injury prone in the league.
How about that Andy Carroll fella? He’s pretty injury prone.
Would think that wages might be an issue. Seems like we’ll squeeze one more season out of Nacho/Kola which isn’t great, but that will allow us to really focus on a LB next summer
Please not one more season like this, I just look at the back three that played against Fiorentina – Mustafi, Chambers and Monreal (or similar combinations to this) and I feel they will leak many goals. Not improving on LB/RB would probably mean a lot of matches with a back 3, unless Kolasinac improves drastically in defending. I somehow dislike that formation even more since that sh.tshow Europa League final. I also think that a proper back 4 system will suit some player better- particularly Özil.
Before this Koscielny shit went down, we would have potentially been looking more at a back 3 of Holding, Sokratis, and Koscielny, with a Chambers in on the right when rotation necessary. That’s not ideal, but not quite so bad.
Remove a Kos and throw in a Mustafi, and it’s a totally different beast, though.
What this highlights is a need for a quality CB. PRONTO. (Just like every single year in the last 10 for Arsenal).
I don’t think Kos would be fit enough to play as much as you’d like him to in that scenario and we’d still have to deal with Mustafi more than we’d all like.
I would rather not imagine Emery playing Xhaka at LB again. AMN maybe but in these pre season friendlies they should have played our young boys in the position.
We have Bola who’s got a lot of potential, but I think he’s coming back from an injury.
Given out left back scenario, I wondered why Tolaji Bola didn’t make it on the plane for our preseason tour to the US, despite training with the first team last season during the international break. Was it precautionary so as not to aggravate the injury further?
You can’t teach Mustafi old tricks, sorry nacho.
I doubt if he had him in mind. Mustafi is beyond redemption; he is congenitally bad at defending. That Mustafi will cost us goals is one of the few certainties in world football.
New tricks? ?
Staying on his feet is a new trick.
Blah blah black sheep
Emery thinks his idea of five protagonists for captain is cool but it shows weaknesses in terms of leadership. He should give it to Leno if he can’t pick one out of the others.
I have a feeling that our back-up option to Tierney is to stick with Nacho and Kola. If so, we will need Monreal.
If we get Ceballos, a quality winger (Zaha the dream, Everton the more realistic one) and some CB, I’d be pretty happy with that.
I think he should play a center back in a back three or a back-up left back instead.
He’s in good nick and can push another season (*unlike Koscielny) This spells the end of the erroneous Tierney pursuit (not that Tierney is a bad player) We need to be concentrating on Cback with the limited funds we have. We should not be dissipating effort trying to plug too many gaps. The priority is winger and Cback (with Cebellos on loan for CM taking care of that end with zero cost) Price on a decent winger is 30-35m (maybe 5m shaved off if we sweat it out to end of window but at risk of being hijacked if we… Read more »