Former Arsenal man Emmanuel Petit admits Eddie Nketiah is a talented player, but he insists the Englishman cannot replace Gabriel Jesus.
Jesus was injured while playing for Brazil at the World Cup and will be sidelined for some months, handing a unique chance to Nketiah to become Arsenal’s first-choice striker.
However, the Englishman has hardly played all season and didn’t do so much to show he is ready during the midseason friendly games.
Speaking about the situation, Petit said via The Sun:
“Nketiah is a good player but he is still young. He is gaining experience all the time, but you can’t replace Jesus with Nketiah and expect the same results. It is too soon for him. If you put him in and expect that, that is not fair on the player, but his time will come.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Nketiah was in terrific form at the end of last season, and we thought he would be the first choice in this campaign, but Arsenal landed Jesus.
He has played only in Europe and the Carabao Cup so far and has not done particularly badly.
Fans will hope he will even be better when he starts matches regularly as the club’s first-choice striker. But if he does not score enough goals by January, we probably should buy a new striker.
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I don’t think he can replace Jesus,he lacks the hold up, dribbling and decision making skills of the Brazillian.
I do like.hia energy though but that can’t be enough.
“Terrific form” seems to mean “he scored some goals”. With Jesus, it’s all the other things he does that make him very difficult to replace.
It’s not really an indictment of Nketiah to say that he can’t replace Jesus, it’s just that there are very few players in the world who would replace what he has brought.
I’m actually feeling quite pessimistic about the season without him playing. It’s not about winning a decent number of games, we did that last season, it’s about maintaining the kind of winning form we were producing with him in the side before the WC – that’s really difficult to do. Of all the good players in the starting line-up now, Jesus is the player I really, really didn’t want to lose to injury and certainly not months out with surgery.
Oh yes he can!
Oh no he can’t!
Oh……..well it is pantomime season😊
There’s no other option thn Nketiah for our 1st 3 or 4 games,
I think our best option would be to replace our weakest link, which would be Odegaard with Smith-rowe/Martineli,we can’t have a weak Nketiah and have Odegaard at his back, we would need a stronger No 8,
Just my thoughts.
Maybe you are right longbenark. But I have a feeling that most fans and our manager think that Odegaard is so good he is our captain. Each to our own….
Yes Admin Pat. I don’t see any weakness in Odegaard. His pressing game is top. He does what Ozil fails to do as a 10. Pressing and pressing. His movement and communication with Saka on the right side of attack. And he scores goals as well.
I think Arteta will stick with Saka. We have the momentum. He will continue with the Mudryk transfer plan. If he gets him, ESR can play as a 9. He has the speed as well. I’m optimistic we will continue from where we stopped. Which is winning more games.
You have every right to make you point mate, referring to or suggesting we should replace Odegaard is not in any way going to improve the team.
He is easily one of our best players so far, and his presence in the attacking third as helped gel others in term of movement and link up play.
We can not replace Jesus, we just need to play better and hopefully Eddie can convert his chances cos on thing I have observed about Nketiah is that he always gets good chance to score.
If it click for him in the first game versus Westham, that could be all the confidence he needs.
Petit our legend and all the comments,much respect.But don’t forget one thing, guys do you remember when we had ramsdel as the keeper people really talked but the end results our number one keeper.TRUST THE PROCESS.
We where scared just like this some years back when we lost our GK then Leno to injury. and Martinez came in for him. but what happened? he (Ended up even better than Leno). so we have only eddy as CF right now, let us give him all the support he needs and see how he can repay us with his performance.
Yeah,but Eddie had had so many opportunities and failed to deliver EMI had very few.
If it works out great call,but I am skeptical
Eddie has played in the europa league with average players around him,surround him with Martinelli, Saka,Xhaka and Odeggard from start to finish with their creativity he will surely score goals,the aspect of bringing these other guys into the game will be his major problem compared to Jesus so the teamm needs to adjust to his game to see good results and Arteta is a tactician aware of this
Saw him sliding on a clear cut assist by Viera. I hate seeing that clip again against AC Milan .
Seriously if I had a Balogun maybe I could stake my coin.
I trust the process though I also know part of it is not losing Jesus to injury at this point in time.
Yep, if he plays, he scores – The King!