It’s always encouraging to see former Gunners leave Arsenal and thrive elsewhere. How proud are you to see Mika Beireth making his mark in Ligue 1? Tweets like this are guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of any Arsenal fan:
The first player to score 12 goals in his first 10 Ligue 1 matches.
Our Hale End graduate, Mika Biereth ❤️🤍 pic.twitter.com/YHocCjZ0yR
— AS Monaco EN 🇲🇨 (@AS_Monaco_EN) March 29, 2025
That said, there are some players who leave, and you can’t help but feel Arsenal made the right decision by letting them go. With this in mind, do you believe Arsenal dodged a bullet by allowing Emile Smith Rowe to depart?
When Smith Rowe burst onto the scene during the 2020-21 season, he carried immense promise. Many believed he and Bukayo Saka were destined to become the next big stars emerging from Hale End to shine for Arsenal over the next decade.
After a brilliant 2021-22 campaign in which he contributed 10 goals and 2 assists across 33 league appearances, injuries unfortunately struck, and he hasn’t been the same since. Over the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, Smith Rowe struggled to rediscover the magical moments that endeared him to the Emirates faithful.
Some fans argued he wasn’t given sufficient opportunities to prove himself. Regardless, the decision was made in the summer of 2024 for Smith Rowe and Arsenal to part ways, with Fulham securing his services for £27 million.
Eight months into his time at Craven Cottage, Smith Rowe has yet to prove Arsenal were wrong to let him go. While he hasn’t been poor, he hasn’t lived up to the player Fulham believed they were getting. Marco Silva’s recent comments about Smith Rowe highlight the club’s frustrations with his inconsistency. Despite ample game time, including 23 starts and 9 appearances off the bench, Smith Rowe hasn’t been able to consistently deliver.
Silva remarked to reporters: “For a player with his quality, with his talent, of course we all expected consistency – we expected to see him have an impact every single game in a Fulham shirt. He has probably played more than 20-25 games already. We saw the impact in half of them, but for a player like him we expect, we want, and we are working with him to have much more impact in a consistent way.”
While Smith Rowe’s talent remains undeniable, he needs to show greater effort and consistency—traits Arsenal also demanded of him during his time at the club. Perhaps he is still adapting to Fulham or coming to terms with leaving his boyhood club, but he must rediscover the form that once had Gooners questioning why Arsenal signed Martin Ødegaard when they already had him.
Fulham are an ambitious club, and if Smith Rowe doesn’t reclaim his spark, he risks being replaced—a sobering thought for a player once heralded as having immense potential.
Interestingly, Arsenal and Fulham will meet in the Premier League on Tuesday night at the Emirates Stadium. It will be fascinating to see how Smith Rowe performs against his former side in such a crucial match.
Michelle M
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I wouldn’t say Arsenal dodged a bullet because ESR was already one of our own and Arteta and the other coaches would have been assessing him after the lengthy layoffs having seen his capabilities.
If Silva felt the need to make the comments that he did, then it’s one of two things. Taking time to settle or not being able to take the next step in his development.
👍SueP
I believe ESR is simply in the process of completing his mental maturity and perhaps desire to put forth those consistent performances now that his physical abilities have returned. Will he become the best player he can be? We’ll see and I wish him well in any case.
No Michelle, we didn’t dodge a bullet, most Gooners on here (to my memory) rued the day we sold him, apart from the ones who spout the ‘injury prone’ rhetoric, but regarding Biereth, surely you realise that Monaco posting “our Hale End graduate” are really taking the p**s out of us for letting him go?
I think we were right to sell him when we did. In fact, I think we should have sold him sooner. Him being injury prone is not just rhetoric, it’s fact. And just like Jack, no matter how talented a player is, if he can’t be counted on to be fit when needed, then he is of no use to us…
And we Mohammed Elneny and Tomiyasu in the team
Interesting article, especially considering how Jesus is still with the team and Vieira was loaned out rather than sold. Neither of them are in the neighborhood of “consistent,” and ESR outplayed Vieira when both were here, and ESR is more likely to score a goal than Jesus.
As far as Biereth, what a loss for us. Nketiah haunted the bench, yet Biereth never got a shot.
He is scoring wherever he goes, yet we have Merino playing as a striker. Worse yet, Jesus should have been sold in the Summer, yet he continues his stay in the physio and not missed in my opinion.
Rather have Biereth as a backup striker than Jesus, and rather have Nwaneri off the bench as a winger than Jesus. Reasoning is both are far more likely to score than Jesus.
Biereth was definitely one the club got wrong; don’t care if it was Edu, Arteta, Board, whomever failed in providing opportunities, and it will cost our club for a backup striker.
@Durand
Thank you…👍🏾
not dodged a bullet – still a decent player in there
more like proof Arsenal made a wise decision and got good money – despite JA still moaning just last week Arsenal should never have let ESR go