Keown insists Arsenal defender is not ready for the position he is occupying

Jakub Kiwior joined Arsenal after establishing himself as a solid centre-back for the Poland national team and Spezia.

His impressive performance at the last World Cup secured his move to the Emirates, where he knew he would have to work hard to earn playing time.

Arsenal’s first-choice centre-back pairing is Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba, making it difficult for Kiwior to break into the team in his preferred position.

As a result, Ben White has been deployed as a right-back, and Kiwior has been used as a left-back.

Although the Poland international is more defensively aware than Oleksandr Zinchenko in that position and has featured regularly, he is not a natural left-back, and sometimes his performance reflects this.

Martin Keown noticed this during the game against Wolves and believes that Kiwior is not yet comfortable in that position.

He said on Premier League Productions:

“Kiwior at left-back, it maybe feels like he isn’t completely ready. 

“But he is another central defender playing out of position. Tomiyasu wasn’t available.

“We will have to look and assess at the end of the season to see which area he wants to strengthen in. That’s an area where Tierney was allowed to go out on loan and Zinchenko has had injury issues, so they have been decimated a little bit. Timber out with an ACL and Tomiyasu out again.

“He hasn’t really got any reliability in that left-back spot.”

Just Arsenal Opinion

Kiwior has done well in the last few weeks for a player who is out of position. If he keeps getting chances there, he will master the role.