I watched about 10 minutes of the England game last night, just before Declan Rice made the assist for some unknown footballer who I willst not name, mainly to get five to ten minutes of seeing Myles Lewis-Skelly at this level. From a confidence perspective clearly he doesn’t lack that and you could absolutely tell it, but during the short time I watched it he very much replicated some of what he does at The Arsenal, i.e. drifting in-field and finding spaces centrally. He also popped in a pretty spicy reverse ball to Bellingham’s feet before a chance was wasted. But it struck me just how at home he was, before I got bored and walked off in to another room to do something else.

But it did plant a seed in my head and that seed has been germinating all night until today, so I thought I’d share some predictive, conspiracy-theory-style, projecting thoughts to you today. Kick them around a bit and then see what you thought.

What is the rise of Myles Lewis-Skelly see’s the departing of somebody like Gabriel to Saudi Arabia this summer?

Here me out on this one.

Nobody expected MLS to break on to the scene, right? But he has done, he’s looked absolutely brilliant, he’s stayed fit and now he’s an England international with a couple of caps under his belt. We play Fulham on Tuesday night and surely there is absolutely no chance he isn’t starting that game given his form this season. He’s essentially used the injury situation at left back to fashion himself in this Arsenal team and he’s keeping Calafiori out.

Calafiori was bought in the summer and clearly Arteta loves him. I think we all get the ‘vibes’ for him too; handsome guy, likes a bit of Italian style and designer clobber, speaks really well and looks like quite a player when on the ball. Very silky, very glidy, very cultured. I like him a lot (I’ll come to the injury stuff in a sec). In fact, I think a lot of people have been saying that he’s more of a centre half than a left back and I’ve read a number of online content pieces, listened to a few Arsenal blogs and watched a few of the ol’ YouTubes with people suggesting his longer-term future might lie there.

That’s where the conspiracy theory starts to get into the next Inception style levels, because what if that IS his future? What if Arteta is looking at the left centre-half position and saying “hey, I want this guy”? It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, is it?

We all love Big Gabby. This season I think he’s easily been our best centre back and there’s no way in Hell I want him out the door. That’s not how I think we should be operating and there are a core of players with which I think we should be slapping a big fat ‘not for sale’ sign on. That includes the two centre-halves, Rice, Saka, probably Odegaard for sure and there are probably a few more but those are the key ones that spring to mind. But the fact that at the beginning of last season Gabriel missed the first few games for what has now been widely reported as an eye-watering amount of cash the Saudi’s wanted to pay him, has always stuck in my mind. Then, when you couple that with the noises Ornstein has recently made on an Athletic podcast about how Arsenal might have to sell a big name in the summer to get everything they have planned for…and my mind starts to jump a couple of moves ahead to that situation.

Imagine if the Saudi’s came in and offered £150million for Big Gabby. Are we all 100% sure that Arsenal would tell them to ‘do one’? I’m not. In fact, given how much Mikel loves buying defenders, it feels very on brand for him to see it as a challenge and with that money burning a hole in his pocket, plus any othe sales, as well as the kitty the club already has earmarked for this summer, it suddenly doesn’t feel unthinkable to me.

And if he loves Calafiori as much as I think he does, he might see that there is a natural successor who is already bedded in at the club and with our way of playing. of course there’s the big ‘injury record’ elephant in the room we need to discuss though. Because let’s face it, when you look at this injury record, I’m not sure relying on him is a viable option. The poor guy has been injured on five separate occasions already this season. He’s missed 15 games and if this injury keeps him out for a few weeks it’ll be up to around 20 by the time he returns. That’s just not somebody you can say is going to be robust enough to take Gabriel’s position and get the level of game times he gets.

There’s also the question about other players in and around the left side of the defence. Kiwior has barely played this season and is clearly out at the end of the season. We know that Zinchennko and KT will be gone in the summer. So regardless of what the future lies for Calafiori in terms of his position, Arsenal will need to do something in left back.

And finally…What about if MLS is actually going to become a central midfielder? That’s what a number of people have suggested and that’s where he’s played in at youth level. But to break in to the Arsenal first team is hard. Like, really hard. Just look at what happened to Maitland-Niles when he played the ‘I don’t wanna play full back, I wanna be a midfielder’ card. I doubt MLS would walk the same path, but it’s not like there hasn’t been historical precedent.

But hey, like I said right at the start of this blog, perhaps this is just the neurotic Tuesday musings of an Arsenal fan over-thinking. But I do wonder if there is a bit of a ‘no smoke without fire’ situation with those Ornstein words. I hope not, I hope both big Gabby and MLS just keep on doing what they’re doing at The Arsenal for a number of years, but I can’t help but having these thoughts planted and then they start to grow into 1,000 words like today. Food for thought.

We’ll have to wait until the summer to find out.