Arsenal fans just might have seen the last of Sead Kolasinac in their colours.
The former Schalke defender played 90 minutes on Tuesday as Arsenal beat Leeds United to reach the quarter-final of the Carabao Cup.
But it might just wind up being Kolasinac’s last-ever game for the Gunners.
The only reason Mikel Arteta picked the left-back against Leeds is because another, higher-ranking player for the same role is injured right now.
Kieran Tierney is absent at the moment, which elevates Nuno Tavares to being Arteta’s first-choice left-back for now.
Finished?
On Saturday, when the Gunners face Leicester in the Premier League, Kolasinac will be on the bench but the likelyhood of him getting game time in this competition is remote.
Even if Tavares were to pick up an injury himself, Arteta would likely turn to Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who has proven himself on the left side of a wing-back role in the past.
The Carabao Cup is the only competition where the Bosnia & Herzegovina international could potentially feature in.
But Arsenal’s quarter-final tie won’t be for another two months and not only will Tierney be back by then, pushing Kolasinac down the pecking order once more, but Arteta isn’t going to risk the player getting injured.
That’s because Fenerbahce are rumoured to want him in January and the North Londoners won’t harm their chances of getting a £100,000-a-week player off the books this winter by playing him eight or nine days before the window opens.
Between now and that quarter-final tie, Kolasinac, signed by Arsene Wenger on a Bosman in 2017, just isn’t going to get many – if any – Premier League chances, meaning that his goodbye to the Emirates might’ve already come this week.
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