The 20 year-old Chuba Akpom was a prolific striker for Arsenal in the youth levels before Arsene Wenger decided to promote him to the Gunners first team towards the end of last season. Le Prof announced in this pre-season that Akpom would not be going out on loan but when the Frenchman changed his mind and sent him off to Hull, we all thought that this meant Wenger would be bringing in a new hitman before the end of the transfer window.
We all know how that worked out, but the question remains; Why did Wenger change his mind? We certainly can’t say that Steve Bruce has not persevered with Akpom. The youngster has played 22 times already this season, but sadly he failed to live up to his promise and has only scored three goals in that time. In fact he has made more headlines for his sulking and disciplinary problems that he has for his footballing talents.
Earlier this month, Arsenal.com did a feature on Akpom and Isaac Hayden, who is also on loan at Hull, and something struck me as strange in his short interview. He was talking about the move up North and he said; “It does feel a bit like a different country up here,”
“It’s always cold, you miss the girlfriend, mum and dad, and the comforts of being at home, but you just have to get on with it and develop a thick skin. The most difficult thing for me is the cooking and the cleaning.
“When you’ve cooked and then you see all the mess that you’ve made, you realise you have to wash everything up. The dishwasher I have at my house here is broken and they didn’t tell me that before I moved in, so I was buzzing about my dishwasher but I can’t even use it!”
Do you see why that worries me? Here is footballer earning at the very least 10,000 Pounds a week, and he has lived in a house for six months but hasn’t picked up the phone to get someone to repair his dishwasher, or even get a brand new one delivered and fitted, which would cost at the most 5% of his weekly wage…
I know that has no bearing on his footballing skills but it does show a measure of how organized he is. But for a striker with his promise at all youth levels not to be able to make an impression in the Championship with a team aiming for automatic promotion, ia big worry. Does anyone still think that he could step up to the Premiership with Arsenal one day?
Am not really sure about that..I don’t think we should trust another English player in such a very important position
That said, Benik Afobe was banging in the goals at the championship and Wenger dint even consider him @ all…now he has scored two in two for Bournemouth,so I don’t think Akpom has Arsenal future..then again, who knows what wenger will think
With wenger not really sure as Wenger is no more the king of youth opportunities but king of favouritism & delusioness. Dat kid Iwobi & Akpom are exceptional talents who could have been involved more often to replace the headless chicken walcott & danny ‘yet to see’ welbeck respectively.. By so doing he wenger could have grounds not to buy a striker as he is intent on not doing so..
Nope
I doubt it…
But hearing that he doesn’t like spending money!
And that he Can’t be bothered to repair things,
He could end up being a future Arsenal Manager, One day!
????
@FBG
Nice one…
Hahahaha …….Logic………Hear! Hear!
LOLz.
Brilliant, cheers dude for the laugh ^.^
Wenger missed a trick with Afobe,I mean he is big, strong and profilic( at least at the championship)he should have been given a chance instead of buying welbeck, there is really no much difference btw him and welbz and he is already better than sanogo
Better than Welbeck too, dare I sare sir..
alexis does rate the boy tho
@Just another gooner
He and Alexis have a connection and link up very well. Though some might not have noticed it.
wenger should let rambo play striker its his destiny!!!!!!
Akpom is arrogant
immature + impatient.
That said he is raw powerful
cocky and talented.
This loan spell will do him a world of good.
But leave him on loan till he is 20 at least.
Giving Wilshere a contract at 17 now (24)
Walcott at 16 (26) and Ox at 18 (22)
and giving them England caps so young
has not enhanced their careers.
Make our players work hard for their contracts.
Zelalem too can stay away another season.
Akpom pointing the TV
remote at the dishwasher
“The dishwasher is stu%#d” 🙂
Arsenal is gonna rape Burnley this weekend. I would advise everyone to pay a visit to the bookies for some additional funds that would be useful at a bar after the game…
So Chelsea is in for Pato. Shouldn’t we have tried to sign him? I’m just not convinced with Giroud and Walcott as our strikers.
There’s also a rumour that says..
Chelsea will go for RVP if the Pato deal fails ??
Adibuyswhores has joined Palace until the end of the season, ? that should be interesting, especially with Palace still to visit the Emirates.
Hell to the no, I’m tired of seeing outdated names on our bench, we need fresh blood not another Sanogo, or Welbeck
Listen Baby Please
This summer huge clearout
Get rid of all our non-scoring strikers : Sanogo, Akpom, Campbell, Gnabry
Get rid of our over the hill players: Arteta, Flamini, Rosicky and Mertsacker
Keep Iwobi, Jenkinson
Promote Zelalem to first team
Sign several top players
@Baby Please
For real dude. Get rid of Campbell but promote light weight Zelalem to the 1st squad…You’re funny…NOT
Campbell can’t even score
Zelalem will be world class
Campbell isn’t a striker dumb dumb, he’s RW and he creates more chances than Walcott even though he’s only been here for half a season and is only 23. Typical Arsenal fickle fans expecting young player to play like Sanchez in his prime, this isn’t FIFA mate this is real life.
Agree with Sonago.
Akpom needs to be loaned out until he steps up and matures, Afobe was just as bad until he matured and then BOOM you cant stop him.
Campbell needs to be kept as he can put his foot in to tackle, he puts effort in and he can get past a player. He could do with working on his shooting but this is his 1st season in the EPL. He is progressing very well and deserves the chance to keep developing with us.
Gnabry needs to be loaned out to a club that doesn’t have a manager which clearly dislikes anything or anyone to do with Wenger and Arsenal. Like Pulis was ever going to help Gnabry… Send Gnabry to Aston Villa, let Wenger help his mate Garde out and lets not forget that Remi Garde has deveoped some top real good players.
fekir rings a bell with anyone? How about Lacazette? I think Gnabry might benefit from playing a season or 2 under Garde.
Arteta is going into coaching so I honestly believe he isn’t signing an extension to his contract. Flamini we should keep and we all should beg him to spend some of his fortune to buy Arsenal FC and get rid of Silent Stan. Oh and I really like Flamini passion, even if he never plays, he can help massively in training.
Rosicky didn’t want to stay this extra year but we forced him into staying by exercising our right to extend his contract by 12 months. I doubt we will be keeping hold of him again.
Per isn’t too old, for people who have no idea about football then it is easy to point the finger at Per, do you even watch football? Seen how Per organised the Def with Cech? Do you see how often Kos makes a mistake but the PARTNERSHIP worked so no1 blames the mistakes Kos makes as Per is usually around to cover. Per lacks pace… So what? Isn’t it down to Wenger not to leave him exposed against teams that play on the counter and has very good pace… We have a SQUAD and not a starting 11.
Baby please… watch some football for the love of all the footballing gods!
Finally someone talking sense about Campbell
Get rid off the crocks after one year injured not keeping them Like diaby..also send on loan the likes of OX, Ramsey and Theo and buy 3 WC players to have strength in depth ST, DM and CB and then we are talking about title contenders and at lest UCL semis..but it is just a dream to much
Agree with Ox going out on loan as he has dropped his level of performance, he needs game time and he will not get that at Arsenal while he isn’t performing.
Ramsey just needs to learn to put in his def work and he will be one of the worlds best CM without a question. He is just as good as Vieira was at getting forward (maybe a bit better!) but Ramsey needs to learn the dedication to get back and put in a tackle like Vieira did.
With Elneny, Cazorla and Coquelin fit then Ramsey will have to work on that side of his game to get game time otherwise he will find himself as a right winger and leaving all us Arsenal fans groaning lol.
Theo is fine as a CF.
He has been playing on the left and I think we can all say that Theo is not as effective on the left compared to the right or as a CF. It will be good to leave Theo to focus solely on the CF role as it will give Giroud a tougher competition for the starting spot and that will only benefit us fans when we have 2 different style CF to fcuk over opponents with 😛 We have a Plan B with Theo and I think that is very important.
Ox needs to be loaned out though, have you seen how Wellington Silva has been doing for Bolton? WOW! that is all I can say. If he can perform like that for Arsenal then Ox will not get any game time out wide, all our wide players are ahead of him.
Our striker issue is a big one, buh if u look @ the teams currently in top 4,they have just one top striker too, Man city have Aguero and bony will never start if Ag is fit, Remy won’t start if costa is fit, Kane, I dunno if spurs have other strikers, Leicester have Vardy and Ulloa,we all know the starter..now add ManU, I don’t even know if Martial or Rooney is their main striker…Liverpool???
We are close to City in that we can still at least spread the goals If there is really a top top striker available, u’d expect Man U/Man city to swoop him
Akpom is a muppet. He’s known to have bullied many of the youth players, thinking he was top shelf…
I honestly don’t expect him to make it as an Arsenal first team player. Think about the type of quality the top teams need, they are to be of the finest on the planet. So for us to groom one since childhood would be remarkable and very very opportunist, hugely lucky or coincidental at very the least. I believe Akpom could still prove useful as I believed Afobe might have offered something to this teams chances right now. However I doubt we managed to grow our very own worldy from scratch.
He has gone somewhere he never wanted to go. The kid has been at Arsenal for how long? Would have been better for AW to put him I don’t no watford a close team so he can be with his friends and family. Steve doesn’t have a great record with kids. Bring him home and you will see this kid fly.
To clear something up for all Arsenal fans, Afobe was a bigger disappointment until he went to MK Dons where he finally managed to score more than 1 in 6 games at best, to say he was a massive prospect and then slander Akpom for not scoring is kinda silly. Afobe could only manage 1 goal in 10 games for Bolton.
Afobe matured and BANG he was worth it.
If Akpom can mature then we could have a great player on our hands, if not then we have another Bendtner, amazing potential but terrible attitude.
Lets hope Akpom becomes more like Alexis and Campbell who fights for everything they get and not like Bendtner or Adebayor who expects everything handed to them on a silver plate.