Calum Chambers lends injury-hit Arsenal solidity at the back

Arsene Wenger impressed as Englishman can play right-back and as a central defender, writes Richard Jolly.

Calum Chambers, right, is already Arsene Wenger's go-to guy at the age of 19. Michael Regan / Getty Images

Fortunate is the footballer who finds themselves a first choice in one position at an elite club.

Rarer still is the player who, were it possible, would occupy two spots in the team.

Such has been the speed of Calum Chambers’s rise that one who, 12 months ago, had only ever begun three first-team matches, is now Arsene Wenger’s best available option at right-back and alongside Per Mertesacker in the centre of the defence.

It is a sign of Chambers’s talent. It is also an indication that Arsenal go to Swansea on Sunday in yet another injury crisis.

Indirectly, it is Chambers’s responsibility that they find themselves short-staffed at the back.

Wenger was so impressed with his summer signing that he decided not to buy another defender but when Laurent Koscielny joined Mathieu Debuchy on the injury list, that proved a mistake.

Even Wenger eventually conceded as much, although his initial intentions were admirable.

The Frenchman did not want anyone else standing in Chambers’s path and has been impressed with the teenager’s precocious assurance, although the strains on an Arsenal defender are apparent in the fact a player who was never booked in a Southampton shirt already has six cautions for his new club.

Besides his preternatural composure, Chambers’s range of attributes has endeared him to a manager who wants his defenders to be much more than mere stoppers.

“He has been remarkable in every position,” Wenger said after September’s North London derby.

“He has an unbelievable engine – he goes and goes – it’s not often that you see that quality.”

Wenger, who decided to buy Chambers following his performance in Southampton’s 2-2 draw against Arsenal in January, suggests he is a footballer first, a defender second.

“He can play central midfield as well as he has good technique, great mobility and is a good distance runner,” Wenger said.

The shortage of defenders precludes deploying him anywhere else at present.

Indeed, with Nacho Monreal a rather fallible makeshift centre-back – as Anderlecht exploited in their comeback from 3-0 down to draw with Arsenal on Tuesday – Wenger could do worse than move Chambers, 19, infield to help counter the potent pair of Wilfried Bony and Gylfi Sigurdsson on Sunday.

Chambers’s Arsenal career began at centre-back, which is all the more remarkable as he never made a senior appearance there for Southampton.

Within his first five Gunners games, he had faced Manchester City, Everton and, in a tight, nervy double header of a Uefa Champions League qualifier, Besiktas, in a role he had only previously occupied at junior levels.

It was the definition of being thrown in at the deep end – a sink-or-swim situation in which he remained afloat.

“It’s gone so well,” he told the Evening Standard this week. “Wherever I’m put, I will do the best I can.”

He comes from the Hampshire market town of Petersfield, where Portsmouth fans outnumber their Southampton counterparts.

He followed a well-trodden path from the south coast to Arsenal, following in the footsteps of Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

He cost £16 million (Dh93.2m), a sizeable chunk of the £93m Southampton banked from their summer exodus.

Sales at the club were expected, with a focus on one full-back last season: not Chambers, but the Manchester United-bound Luke Shaw.

Yet the current England squad shows both right-backs, Nathaniel Clyne and Chambers, were at St Mary’s under Mauricio Pochettino.

There was an almost equal division of labour last season, with Chambers starting 18 league games and Clyne the other 20.

The new Gunner was the regular for much of the second half of the campaign but his move has benefited both.

Clyne has reached new heights without competition for his place as Chambers has broadened his horizons and expanded his repertoire.

It brought a first senior strike, stabbed in against Burnley last week, although after the late capitulation against Anderlecht, Arsenal’s objective has to be to improve at the other end.

At least, in Chambers, they have a quick learner who responds well to the toughest of tests.

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