Marquinhos made his mark on his senior debut for Arsenal in the Europa League clash with FC Zurich on Thursday, and Charles Watts has been full of praise for the youngster.
The Brazilian arrived from Sao Paulo in a bargain £3 Million transfer and was initially thought to be in line for a loan move, but he quickly changed the minds of those in and around the club.
Mikel Arteta later claimed that he would like to keep the 19 year-old in north London until at least January, and after impressing for the youth sides, he has now been granted his debut, which he took with both hands (and feet).
Watts admits that whilst he was impressed by his performance, what was most telling was his ability to show his quality with either foot, comparing him to the very left-footed Nicolas Pepe.
“I think that was quite promising as well that (the cross for Martinelli) and the cross which led to Nketiah’s goal were both left-footed,” Watts his YouTube followers.
“As a winger you don’t just want to be a bit of a one-trick pony where you’ve only got one foot to get a ball. You want to be able to deliver a decent ball with both feet.
“We’ve seen, say Nicolas Pepe at times when he was there. It was always a case of ‘right, don’t let him cut in on the left foot, get him down on his right foot’.
“And then he’s not going to be able to deliver very well. And it became quite easy for some defenders to mark against.
“But Marquinhos seemed to show (Thursday) – and this is only fleeting evidence – but it just felt pretty good that it wasn’t just the case of ‘he has to go on his right and whip it on his right foot’.
“He can cut it on the left and deliver a good ball in from the left hand side with his left foot as well because there were two really good crosses.
“His finish was his right foot – that was a great finish.”
There was a lot to be impressed about from his debut, and it was a breath of fresh air to see him use both feet to such effect. What will be interesting to see if he can now push to break in to make his Premier League debut considering the wealth of options at our disposal on the wings currently, but we certainly appear to have found another star, and another bargain signing at that.
Patrick
A wonderful first team full debut and at just £3 million, a stunning bargain.
One day PERHAPS, OTHER GOONERS WHO ARE AS PERCEPTIVE AS EDU IS SHOWING HE UNDOUBTEDLY IS, will start to give this man Edu, the praise he has long deserved , instead of foolish and immature criticism.
Edu has done an incredible job in bringing in Martinelli and Marquinhos, 2 young Brazilian gems. We have the pleasure of watching them develop into top talents with our club.
I hope to see him expand beyond just the Brazilian sphere in spotting young players with top level potential.
I congratulate him on doing a good job so far, but it is still early days.
Edu has had an enormous checkbook to work with, and has spent hundreds of millions in recruitment.
That alone does not guarantee success, but the vast amount of cash he has had access to improves his resume of positive transfers.
I think edu had us all worried for a while, but incoming recruitment has been very good over the past couple of seasons, especially the most recent one. Marquinhos could turn out to be an amazing signing considering the price – superb debut performance! The club does need to address the outgoing recruitment issues, still, but I’m confident they are working on it. I don’t think any organisation would be happy with the poor returns we’ve been forced to collect.