Reiss Nelson impressed again with an assist against Portsmouth.
It’s hard to remember the last time Arsenal had so many exciting young players coming through at once, with the sheer volume of talent being produced by our academy that it’s hard to actually keep track of them all.
Reiss Nelson is certainly one of those. The 20-year-old did not enjoy the same explosive start to life in the first-team as Bukayo Saka has this season, while Eddie Nketiah is also catching the eye at the moment after his return from loan at Leeds, while others like Joe Willock and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have enjoyed a great deal more playing time in general.
Nelson, meanwhile, first started playing in the first-team in 2017/18, and also had a decent start to his loan spell at Hoffenheim last season before fizzling out.
Still, he’s still only 20 and he’s shown in recent games that he can still be a big part of our future. Check out this stat below…
Two goals and four assists in his last eight starts is very impressive from Nelson, and his improvement couldn’t be coming at a better time for us.
With a top four spot looking difficult but still not impossible, we need everyone in the squad performing at as high a level as possible and pushing each other to improve.
Nelson may still not be right at the top of Mikel Arteta’s pecking order, but displays like this when he does get on the pitch will give Nicolas Pepe a bit more to think about, or at the very least give us the option of rotating a little more so our FA Cup exploits don’t leave us burnt out in the league.
We may only have been playing League One opposition last night, but it’s hard not to be encouraged by Nelson’s recent improvement and growing contributions to the first-team.