Image via @Arsenal on Twitter
Yesterday evening, we got to see the first glimpses of Jakub Kiwior in the senior Arsenal side after his £25 million move from Spezia in January. He’s had to wait of this opportunity, having been named on the bench for Arsenal in every game they’ve played since he joined, and Kiwior did get minutes in the PL2 development league last week.
Following in the footsteps of Wojciech Szczęsny, Kiwior became the first Polish outfield player to make a competitive start for Arsenal, and was generally solid on the ball.
However, he came in for heavy criticism for the first goal Arsenal conceded, a free header from a corner for Sporting centre back Goncalo Inacio. In my opinion, criticism of Kiwior alone in this situation is a bit strange, as Inacio was being marked by Gabriel Martinelli, who isn’t the tallest player in the team. This is before mentioning Arsenal’s goalkeeper on the night, Matt Turner, who shouted to claim the ball before retreating. I imagine this would go some way into explaining why Kiwior appeared to duck out of the way rather than challenge for the header himself, and Mikel Arteta suggested miscommunication was the issue in the post-match press conference.
Of course, this didn’t stop some of the online element of Arsenal’s fanbase declaring Kiwior useless on the basis of a debatable mistake and the fact Arsenal were repeatedly undone by a Sporting side neat on the ball before Arteta elected to throw on more of his starters at the 70 minute mark, which included Gabriel for Kiwior. The way I see it, the only reason Kiwior is coming in for more criticism than the other members of the defence is that he was making his first start and is therefore an easy target for any defensive deficiencies to be blamed upon.
His defensive partner on the night, William Saliba, certainly thought that Kiwior did alright on his first start, stating afterwards: “It’s his first game and he played well. I played the first time with him. Unfortunately we conceded two goals but it’s okay. We train a lot together because in training we change the pair and it wasn’t bad to play with him for the first time.”
Obviously, Saliba isn’t going to come out and say he’s terrible, but Kiwior certainly has the backing of his teammates and his manager. Whether he starts the second leg next week or not we’ll have to wait and see, but you imagine the majority of Kiwior’s minutes for the rest of the season will come in the Europa League.
In terms of the Polish national side, Fernando Santos has stated he isn’t concerned about Kiwior’s lack of playing time, and the 23 year-old defender had been on his way to becoming Poland’s first-choice in that position under Czesław Michniewicz. It’s likely that this will continue under Santos, but with Jan Bednarek coming into form for Southampton, we’ll likely see a defensive partnership of Kiwior and Bednarek in the upcoming internationals assuming Santos goes with a back four.
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