There’s been quite the debate going among Arsenal supporters over the last three years. And you all know what the argument is about, Arsenal’s English center forward Eddie Nketiah. Is he good enough? Is he worth whatever salary Arsenal are paying him? Uhmm.. I’m probably missing some other argument both those are the main two.
Well, now that Gabriel Jesus is out for three months with knee surgery I have a feeling we are going to find out just how good Mr. Nketiah is. I know that a lot of folks will say that they want Arsenal to buy Mudryk or something and I guess that’s a thing. Umm, he plays literally zero defense for his current club and will need to be trained to do that at Arsenal but sure ok, maybe we buy him in January, for a small fortune.
Or, and hear me out on this one, we don’t. I mean, we are paying Eddie Nketiah to literally be the backup player for literally this exact situation. So, maybe we just start him?
And guess what? If we do, then we will have a definitive answer to all the arguments. Up till now we’ve only had 8 starts as a senior player in the League in order to determine his quality. He did score 5 goals at the end of last season and a lot of folks think that shows he can do it, but if Jesus is out for three full months, then that would give Eddie 11 consecutive starts in the League. And against good opponents as well. So, this is, in my mind, the chance for Eddie to prove his doubters wrong and earn his corn.
I will personally be cheering him on.
As for transfers I think that Arsenal definitely need to bring in a forward but I think we should look for someone more like Martinelli – not as in a wide player but as in a hidden gem – rather than go for someone like Mudryk. Another option I’d like to see us explore in the forward department is a bigger guy, someone who can hold the ball up and get his teammates into the game, also can score headers. Honestly Olivier Giroud would be a great choice but I’m not sure he’d be willing to come back. So, someone like him would be good.
Also, please Stan Kroenke, buy Jude Bellingham. K? Thanks!
We need a new Eduardo da Silva. On this basis, I googled Croatia+striker and discovered Andrej Kramaric. “His former national team coach Niko Kovač compared him with legendary Croatian (and one-year Arsenal) striker Davor Šuker.” Job done, Edu habibi.
I sincerely hope that Eddie will rise to the challenge and quickly disprove his doubters -it’s his big career opportunity. However I also hope that we can add effective firepower to back him up over the predicted three months/dozen games that he is our only out and out striker. Sadly our PL championship challenge now hangs in the balance.
Can’t see us spending big on another striker. Do we have recall rights for Balogun? Think we probably need someone though, in case Eddie gets hurt too.
Feels to me like Eddie is a form scorer, so hopefully the minutes get him into a groove.
Thoughts on getting Tyler Adams as the Party back up?
Meh, I feel like Tyler Adams isn’t quite at the level we need. Would rather Arteta use his managerial skills to get Sambi up to speed.
Sambi isn’t suited to a single pivot though. We’ve tried him there and it doesn’t quite work. We needs to be in a double pivot or more of a free moving 8. I just get the sense he’s never struggled and isn’t used to not starting and having to compete for a place. He was Anderlecht’s golden boy and captain at a young age. Maybe he will prove me wrong but he doesn’t seem like an Arteta type player.
Not suited or not ready? I’d put my money on the latter. Even Partey, who was the finished article already at Atletico, took time to adjust to what that role asks of him. It’s a big, big learning curve to go from bombing back and forth on the best team in Belgium to learning Arteta’s nuanced JdP midfield in the most moneyed league in the world. He may not be up to it but it’s too early to pass judgment.
But you need a back-up for Eddie now to play Europa League and FA Cup.
ESR is coming back and Arteta has talked about him being able to play a #9.
Get Depay on loan if he’s available. Barcelona don’t want him, they’d probably be happy to dump his salary for half a year.
Recall Balogun – he’s doing well on loan.
Martinelli and Saka will be wiped when they get back. We’ll need either Marquinhos to step up or another winger. Mudryk wants to come, that’s always a good sign and his salary will not be killer.
There’s talk about Danilo too for the Partey-protege role.
Danilo nowhere ready, especially on the defensive side of the game. Not sure he’s that much of an improvement over Sambi playing at the 6.
Disagree about a young guy. We have enough youngsters and now need to get 1-2 ready made players in their mid 20s. More like Jesus and Zinchenko age profile. We need at least 2 forwards now because we can’t go 3-4 months with Eddie as the only fit natural striker. He can’t play all the PL, Europa, and FA Cup games, and if he picks up an injury, we’re screwed. Also we need a No 6 and no youngster can even approach what Partey does for us. Partey himself took time to adjust to the PL. The Brazilian Danilo is not it. At all. Hope we don’t go for him.
I hear CR7 is available for 200 million. What? No takers at the mighty Arsenal?
We always seem to be linked with Zaha but I think that ship salied a while back.
Jesus does so much for us, this is really bad news.
I think we should let Balogun remain in France. Don’t interrupt his development.
However, goals make all the difference. Bring in Mudryk…maybe Ferran Torres?
Danilo has some mental lapses, but I rate him as a Partey understudy.
Jude would be TRANSFORMATIONAL (and Teenage Lady Gooner is gaga over him)…splash the cash, Enos.
Found the post a bit jumbled up. Mudryk is a winger and his arrival would not impact the Eddie debate. We need a winger. Like you, I’m not sure that that player is Mudryk. But I’m also not sure that we need another prospect. We are entering the UCL & PL chasing era and that requires more performers than prospects. We need to be fairly sure that injuries to the first 11 won’t result in a devastating drop-off in quality. As Clive so often puts it, there are players in our team whose games demand a return. They won’t be happy to have prospects developing if it means a continued inability to challenge.
If we go for a prospect, it means that we have written off the league title. Also, don’t recall Balogun. Let him have a full season (or two) in a first 11. I agree with you regarding a tall attacker ala Giroud. My approach for Jan would see a winger as priority, a loan signing CF to assist Eddie for 3 months (our Henrik Larson) and if possible, a DM 6. The DM 6 is no longer an issue as El Neny is back. I’d defer it to the summer. We can’t have one CF for 3 months with Europa, PL & FA cup games. We may end up having to rush back Jesus & that is not optimal.
Good points. Can’t ever go wrong when echoing Clive…
Agree, the championship window is open right now!! Carpe diem.
Switzerland humiliated, with the most anonymous I’ve seen Xhaka. Could hardly tell that he was on the field.
Sucks that Spurs are having a better world cup than we are… from Richarlison, to Son (until Brazil) to Lloris. Even exes like Modric.
Sucks to lose Gabi J; sucked to see that he was kind of peripheral for Brazil anyway. The bright sports are Gabi M — a lad who always seizes his chances and has now jumped Rodrigo in the queue — and Saka, who’s being chased hard by Rashford for his spot. Tomi was great in a losing cause.
Sorry. Im tribal that way.
Eddie? This is why he was re-signed. We’ll see how deep our bench is. Emile is also returning, so that’s a boost.
One more thing… Paqueta. We looked at him, but Edu said we had players too similar — ESR, Ode and Fabio. West ham kind of got him on the cheap.
Don’t worry too much about Spurs at the World Cup. For one thing they are older than our boys; this is supposed to be their peak. And they’ve been good; except for Lloris who has been shaky and /was terrible against Poland. At the end of the day though, the more they play, the better it is for Arsenal.
The only one that hurt for me was Richarlison being picked over Gabi. They are similar ages and profiles and competing for the same role on the same team. Plus Richarlison is just so incredibly unlikeable, even before he went to Spurs.
Richarlison can play more like a classic 9 than Gabi. And he’s a more reliable goalscorer for Brazil. I can’t dislike a man who scores a goal crafted by 2 centre backs playing like No.10s. A goal even sexier than his acrobatic one.
For another, Spurs are not our rivals, Man City are…lol
lol
They’re closer than you think. And Richarlison is coming back from the WC with a head of steam. I think they’re title contenders too.
Richarlison always has an angry look about him, it’s almost as if he’s annoyed at being in a small club (there you go, the steam).
We’ll be fine 😂
I think a loan at striker makes sense. There is no striker backup to our backup. It would be a lot to ask young ESR or Martinelli to take on that role, having never played it at a high level. Better someone who’s at least played the role at some point, imo.
Eddie needs to step up, and given a few games, he’ll get his chances. Let’s hope he takes them. I’m not 100% bought into the “Title chances are gone” mentality. It will be much harder, but don’t forget how many City players are still in WC. They will take time to return and re-adjust. There could still be injuries to their team. It’s not the same City thus far this season. The team is still adjusting to Haaland and will continue to do so.
I’m actually excited to see what Arteta and Edu do as their next move.
Mudryk looks like a rare physical specimen with explosiveness like you seldom see, plus touch and vision, plus ball striking. I buy the hype. He doesn’t have to be much more than who he already is to add goals to Arsenal, and then the nuanced tactical stuff will come. We have such a luxury to have a manager like Arteta who can improve pretty much any young player we buy. But if there is any question about his work ethic, we should stay away.
I think the best striker replacement for Gabi J would be Gabi M. They are similarly busy, two footed, tricky and passionate. Unfortunately that would rob us of our best LW (by a mile). That’s where a purchase like Mudryk would help, not to mention giving Arteta the ability to rest Saka at least sometimes.
Most likely though Eddie will start. But how long of a leash will he have? Certainly not as long as Gabi J. Where I worry about Eddie is the mental side of the game. The tools are there but I don’t know that he has the drive to be great like Gabi M does, and at the highest level that can separate the pretty good from the awesome.
Thanks for taking a more relaxed position Tim. I’m sure we won’t be panicked into buying a top priced striker (or even any striker) for the few months that Jesus will be recovering from his op. We already have a good collection of goal scorers and Eddie will chip in with a few. Smith Rowe will be the game changer (literally).
I wonder how martinelli playing forward with esr or someone like mudryk on the left compare to playing eddie up front. also someone like balogun being recalled might be interesting as well – he’ll offers more than eddie – despite him scoring last season i felt a lot of those goals were scrappy or really clear opportunities and he doesn’t offer much else – i don’t have number to back me up but my eye test is that he gets dispossessed easily and turns the ball over a lot – his first touch is championship level – and he doesn’t really offer anything defensively either
he* numbers*
Gooner family… you realise that we can’t NOT give Eddie his chance, right? He’s Gabi J’s number 1 alternate. We’ve been subbing him into games, in the majority of cases bringing off GJ, and in a few cases playing with him with him. Eddie, as befitting his status, has had a fair few games, albeit not that much game time.
This is where ArtEdu show us if they got that re signing wrong, or right. Like it or not, he’s our man. Any incoming in that position is to be second fiddle to Eddie. Don’t look for a worldie. With Emile back, and Saka, Ode and Gabi M in the goals, we might be looking to share the goals.
What we’ll have to do is play different. Few have GJ’s workfare and world class movement. With Eddie, we’d be direct.
Depay on loan? Backup across multiple positions, experience, an extra body for FA cup games. And given Barca’s financial situation, a deal could probably be done to our advantage. Again, strictly on loan.
I mean, I guess? I’m not a hater but would Netherland’s starting CF and a player who plays for Barcelona want to be a backup at Arsenal?
It would be good to find a reasonably capable mid 20s player that’s comfortable either on the wing or in the middle(coverage for both Eddie and Saka). And that doesn’t mind not being the starter in the PL. And that is available for a reasonable fee/salary.
I’m sure there’s lots of those we can choose from, right?
I hope Arsenal stick to their transfer strategy and not go for short term fixes.
For me that would be prioritising the wide right player. I think that allows Arsenal to use Saka more centrally. Untested but I think he would absolutely kill it in the LCM role. I think we also have a 3rd choice striker in Martinelli. I would also expect Fabio Viera to play a bigger role in the next round. For me left wing and a backup for Partey are priorities.
Hot take but I think Nketiah will do fine as Jesus’s backup.
Jesus adds huge value to our attack without scoring goals. He’s great in build-up, great at hold-up play, wins duels all over the pitch, and presses like a monster. All of these have contributed to our ability to dominate the opposition this season and rack up a huge ratio of “touches in the box for vs against”, and to keep the opposition penned in.
Nketiah doesn’t do those things as well, but I think from the cameo’s we saw when he came on as a sub this season playing with the first team (I’m disregarding europa league games where he played with the B-team. He’s not well-suited to playing with the B-team because his overall offensive contribution is lower) he’s tightened up his touch and speed of play. It won’t be anywhere near as good as Jesus but it’ll be servicable.
On the flip side, Nketiah is seemingly a better poacher/pure finisher, and so he should offset some of the lack of dominance we’ll have with more goals.
And the structure of the team overall is really good right now, especially the defense, which will help us through games where we don’t dominate possession like we have been doing up till now. So I think Nketiah’s deficiencies relative to Jesus won’t hurt us as much as people think. We’ll have to adjust – certainly the attack won’t be as fluid, and we’ll need to a lot from Xhaka and Ode to pick up some of the buildup contributions that Jesus would have done. But I think that we can do it.