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Kevin Campbell believes 26-year-old Arsenal man makes a ‘massive difference’ when he plays
Kevin Campbell has admitted that whenever he plays for Arsenal, defender Oleksandr Zinchenko makes a huge difference to the side.
Campbell on The Gooners Pod after the first four matches of the Premier League.
Results have been very positive so far, with a Community Shield victory in the bank and an unbeaten start in the league.
The only negative has been conceding a late goal against Fulham that saw them drop two points.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has had to chop and change his defence in every league game this season.
In every Premier League game so far, a different left-back has been selected.
Jurrien Timber, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Jakub Kiwior and finally Oleksandr Zinchenko have been selected in that role.
An injury to the Ukrainian prevented him from starting the first three matches.
However, Campbell is now very excited that Zinchenko is fully fit for Arsenal again.
His role in the squad is so unique that Arteta doesn’t have another player who can do exactly what he does.
Campbell raves about Arsenal star Zinchenko
Speaking about the impressive left-back, : “When [Oleksandr] Zinchenko’s not there, I think have Thomas Partey to go into midfield really did help the squad.
“People say it didn’t work, well it did work because we won two of those games and we drew one where there’s no way we should have only got a point against Fulham.
“But as soon as Zinchenko comes back, he reverts back to Zinchenko, Gabriel [Magalhaes], [William] Saliba and Ben White, so I understand that.
“Against teams who don’t carry the same threat, I think you could mix and match a little bit more.
“But you could see Zinchenko makes a massive difference to us, he really does.
“And he doesn’t play as a left-back does he, he plays in midfield so again he’s a huge part of what we do and how we do it.
“Defensively, he’s not Kieran Tierney or even [Takehiro] Tomiyasu, but what he does bring to the table is so important for us going forward.
“Quietly, I thought he had a really good game against Manchester United.”
Arsenal fans will agree with Campbell that Zinchenko makes such a difference when he’s in the side.
Robbie Mustoe has agreed that Zinchenko makes the Gunners ‘immediately better’, while Gary Lineker has described him as ‘very impressive’.
Mikel Arteta will be praying he returns from international duty fully fit and will be glad he was withdrawn early against England.
He showed his immense versatility by scoring from a number ten role against the Three Lions but will look just as comfortable in defence at the weekend.