DO ARSENAL NEED EZE?
I’ve woken up with an extraordinary amount of energy after a terrible night’s worth of sleep. Wish I could feel like this every day. I could write 10,000 words for you right this second. I could run 37.6m and not even be tired. I could truly focus on a project for more than 6 minutes without looking at my phone. I am BLESSED this Thursday. Praise BE.
Maybe it’s because we’re going to do Season Predictions for The AOP today and I am going to absolutely boss it. No more attention-seeking Dark Horses for me. I’m going with warm mayo predictions. I’m a generic work proposal crafted by an intern using ChatGPT. I’ll be the guy at the party who doesn’t like football but supports England. I’m going to be so boring, you’ll unsubscribe and leave me some hate mail. I’m all-in on opinions drier than a vegan cake at a farmers market.
You know what else tastes worse than the underside of a farmer’s boot? The end of this transfer window. The Eze links were cover for Ethan Nwaneri not signing for Arsenal… but he signed, which was amazing, but now I’m angry because we were so close to having an overstocked squad we’ve been dreaming of…
But I have to be clear here. Eze blowing up this season while Ethan rots… or Ethan blowing up and watching Eze play well for Spurs? Give me the Ethan rocket fuel all day long. Does this represent Arsenal taking a chance on a young player who might not be able to cover for Odegaard? It absolutely does. But every single season comes loaded with risk and that sort of risk I am willing to accept. I do NOT want to see our young players go to Man City or Chelsea and thrive. For Hale End to flourish as something bigger than football, there have to be consistent proof points of its babies thriving at Arsenal. Man City don’t really have those proof points, nor do Chelsea. Arsenal choosing to keep Ethan at the club and pass on Eze works for me… barely, but it does work for me.
My bigger concern out here is heading into the season with Martinelli and Madueke as the options on the left. You can show me pie charts for days on Madueke, but what I don’t see is G&As that convince me we have a sure bet. What I do know is Arsenal passed on him years ago because of attitude and he wasn’t on the radar until very late in the season. Our main addition from a wing perspective seems to be a player that was an opportunity move who lives in exactly the same world as Martinelli.
Now, to put a positive spin on this new left… we now have two players, the same age, actively fighting it out for supremacy. Martinelli and Madueke are fighting for a bright future. One of them will lose this season. This is realer competition for me because the age and the profile of both players is very similar. They are two players with high ceilings who could bang. Imagine if they both do? Would be dreamy stuff.