Chris Sutton has admitted that he cannot stand what he is now hearing some say about Arsenal defender Oleksandr Zinchenko.
It has definitely been a tricky period for Mikel Arteta. Arsenal went into last week with a very good chance of winning their Champions League quarter-final tie against Bayern Munich, and had their Premier League title fate in their own hands.
Three games later, and the Gunners are now below Manchester City in the top-flight. Meanwhile, they have been knocked out of Europe by Thomas Tuchel’s side.
Unfortunately, a number of their players have been struggling in the last few games. Declan Rice has looked tired. Bukayo Saka has been nowhere near his best over the last two games. And Kai Havertz‘s weaknesses as a striker have been somewhat exposed.
But there is another player who has found the going difficult for a little longer.
Chris Sutton hates what’s been said about Oleksandr Zinchenko
Oleksandr Zinchenko was previously so important to the way Arsenal wanted to play. However, the Ukrainian has been out of form for a while.
Some have suggested that Zinchenko is a liability. And some supporters were clearly not impressed by how easily Youri Tielemans won a challenge against him at the weekend, before the Belgian had a shot which struck the bar and post.
Chris Sutton was asked about Zinchenko’s struggles and some fans feeling that he has to take a large portion of the responsibility for Arsenal’s recent form on It’s All Kicking Off.
“Yeah [it’s unfair]. I can’t stand things like this actually,” he said. “But in the history of football, there’s always been scapegoats, someone to blame. Someone has to take the blame for Arsenal’s poor form. It’s a collective. I’m not going to say all Arsenal fans, but there’s quite a strange bunch. I mean, there were Arsenal fans who bothered to stay until the end of games.
“Very, very, very reactive, aren’t they. They’ve had a good season.”
Arsenal star a victim of his own success
It does feel that Zinchenko, along with Gabriel Jesus, has been the victim of Arsenal’s success. During his first season at the Emirates, it appeared to be a masterstroke to sign the 27-year-old for £30 million.
He arrived with that knowledge of winning honours with Manchester City. And he definitely seemed to play his part in the standards being raised at London Colney.
However, Zinchenko was not playing regularly for City before his move. He made 58 league starts across five years.
Arsenal are now fighting with City. So suddenly, some of the issues that meant that Zinchenko was not a regular starter for City have perhaps come to the fore again.
It is definitely not fair to blame him for Arsenal’s last few results, particularly as he did not even feature yesterday against Bayern.
But there is surely a debate to be had about whether he is someone Arsenal should look to cash-in on in the summer.
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