With captain Thomas Vermaelen as the first reserve, Wenger has even likened his options to when he inherited a squad in 1996 with Tony Adams, Steve Bould and Martin Keown as his three centre-halves. “It is a bit like that,” said Wenger. “The one who didn’t play, the decision was not justifiable. Each time I made a decision about who was left out, I thought ‘it is not right’.” Yet after mistakenly persisting with Vermaelen and one of Mertesacker or Koscielny for much of the previous two seasons, there can be no lingering doubt about the best combination today.