At the start of the season, it felt like Arsenal couldn't move for full-backs. Here on football.londonwe did a piece analysing the Gunners squad depth after the transfer window closed in September and counted that Mikel Arteta had four senior right-back options, and seven senior left-back options at his disposal.
Somehow they now find themselves down to the bare bones. It doesn't look like changing any time soon, either.
Ben White is out until next year at the very least with a knee problem, and Arteta has already confirmed that it could be longer. "Ben is gonna be out for months unfortunately," the Spaniard said last month. "It's been different kinds of struggles. It’s never been the same thing. We had to make a decision. It’s not been improving in the last few weeks unfortunately.
"We know that Ben is going to push every boundary but it got to a point a where we have to protect the player and we decided to do the surgery. He agreed with that and unfortunately that’s going to keep him out for a few months."
Takehiro Tomiyasu is out of the country as he continues to rehabilitate from a knee problem of his own. He isn't particularly close to a return, either.
"He is going to be away now for a few weeks to continue with his treatment and as well change a little bit the environment, because psychologically it has been really, really tough for him - as you can imagine," Arteta said in November. "He is a guy that the only thing he wants to do is work 24 hours to get better and he feels terrible when he is not fit.
"It's a real shame, so we are going to give him the best opportunity to try out that kind of thing. If it can trigger something, unlock something and try to help him, to have him as quick as possible back - but I think we need to be patient."
The Gunners are currently also without Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riccardo Calafiori who have shorter-term injuries, while Myles Lewis-Skelly only just returned to the squad after a short absence of his own.
The lack of options has forced Arteta to get creative. Against Fulham, the Spaniard started Thomas Partey at right-back and shifted Jurrien Timber at left-back.
Ostensibly there is little wrong with this. Partey can do a job at right-back and even produced a standout performance against Liverpool in that position. Timber, meanwhile, has been used regularly at left-back and defends that flank well.
For all their solidity in those positions, though, Arsenal lose so much elsewhere by playing Partey and Timber out of position. Partey is not able to dictate play from the middle of the park like he can when he is in his preferred No.6 role. Timber cannot get forward to the same effect down the left.
The result leaves Arsenal's attack looking pretty lopsided. Against Fulham on Sunday, a whopping 53% of the Gunners' play came down the right hand side compared to just 26% down the left (as per WhoScored).
It should be said that Arsenal's attack tends to skew to the right with the influential pair of Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard drifting to that side of the pitch. But with little to no thrust at all down the left, the numbers against Fulham were 7% higher than usual.
This is a particular issue when Arsenal are facing deep blocks as it makes them predictable. Partey is also not as adept at overlapping into the box as Timber is when the Dutchman plays his preferred right-back position meaning the Gunners are somewhat nullified in open play. As a result they become dependent on set-pieces, and while Arsenal are very good at them, they only account for a small part of the game.
Luckily for Arteta, though, a solution may have presented itself from something of a forgotten source. Kieran Tierney has become available for selection again in recent weeks after recovering from a serious hamstring injury.
The Scottish international is by no means in Arteta's long-term plans, but with such an absence of left-footed left backs at the moment he could provide a solution to Arsenal's attacking woes. It's not so long ago that the Gunners' seemingly default route to goal was to play it to Tierney down the left and get him to constantly cross the ball in. Who's to say it couldn't do the trick once more?
With room for error running out in the title race, the Gunners can't afford to be so blunt going forward. They're not in a position to turn their noses up at any solutions, and Tierney could the most unlikely of saviours for their season.