In reality, Gabriel Martinelli hasn’t performed at his peak over the past two seasons. This season has shown signs of resurgence, but he hasn’t been consistent, which is all we ask from him.
In the end, do you think Arsenal may have no choice but to sell Gabriel Martinelli next year, given he’s one of their most saleable assets?
Not long ago, former Premier League scout Micky Brown revealed that Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta just wasn’t convinced Gabriel Martinelli should be starting. Brown suggested the Spaniard had ambitions of signing a top winger.
Over the summer, credible sources revealed that Arsenal was looking to sign a dynamic winger after failing to recruit their top striker target, Benjamin Sesko. We spoke of how someone like Nico Williams would have been the answer to Arsenal’s transfer needs. However, that didn’t go through.
Despite his signing, Raheem Sterling, a dynamic winger, hasn’t had much of an impact on this Arsenal team. In fact, Brown noted that, like Martinelli, Arteta wasn’t convinced that he was a starter for his team.
Reiss Nelson (to Fulham) and Fabio Vieira (to FC Porto) departed on loan agreements, while Eddie Nketiah signed with Crystal Palace on a £30 million deal and Emile Smith Rowe joined Fulham on a £34 million deal. The four were Arsenal’s most sellable assets last summer.
Looking at the current Arsenal squad and asking yourself who its sellable assets are in 2025, I’m sure Gabriel Martinelli is a player you’ll mention as one who can be sold and would bring the most profit.
Selling Martinelli is not unthinkable. The club needs to raise funds to invest in the squad. But before we opt to let the Brazilian go, we need to give him a chance to prove himself.
If he can demonstrate his indispensable role on the left wing by improving his performance over the next few months, then he could remain there.
If we decide to let him go, the club should determine who is deserving to be his replacement.
Darren N
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We’ll see an improvement when Calafiori returns to add to the left side with Merino.
It’s true that Martielli’s salable, but I think we should see the season out before deciding his worth.
it is true Calafiori and Merino were recruited to address our underperforming left hand side – Martinelli needs to do his bit improving his decision making and conversion, if he can’t then Arsenal needs to look to replace him with someone who lift of left hand side to Saka-Odegaard-White performance levels
Yes. But Arsenal had better keep the highly talented and skilled LW, because it’s very difficult to find such world-class young winger with a great work ethic
Nico Williams would be a very good competitor for Martinelli, but he’s overpriced and not a homegrown player in England
Nico Williams has not had a very good start to the season either
We can’t sell him now we need him. His form is getting better and I think we will see a further increase in his form again soon.
The thing that bothers me with his gameplay more recently is how he struggles to cut inside.
He seems to be all too happy all too often by using his pace to go on the outside this season. Which hasn’t bore us too many fruits this season.
We should selling him already and go all out for nico W. Martinelli is not improving and he can’t so he has become very predictable for opposition
Nico Williams stats this season
11 played 1 goal 1 assist
Martinelli
11 played 3goals 2 assists
Martinelli as been underperforming this season but so have the rest of the team and manager.
Interesting stats. It’s clear that, so far, Williams hasn’t been hitting the same highs as he did last season. However, suspect that should he come on the market in the summer there will still be a big clamour – bigger than that for Martinelli probably – for his signature (as there would have been last summer had he wanted to leave, which he didn’t).
Interesting stats.
Perhaps time to start asking questions why.
Arteta seems to easily reach for the checkbook instead of coaching up players, wasn’t he touted as a good coach at City?
Perhaps freshen up his coaching staff if they aren’t developing players.
Martinelli has talent and relentless work ethic, it’s up to him AND the manager to develop it.
The coach definitely prefers the check book over coaching his players.
@Durand
Real Talk…👍🏾
A player who was performing well starts underperforming—solution: Get a better player. But what happens if the replacement, like Nico Williams, also diminishes over time? Do we keep selling and buying endlessly? We’ve seen this pattern before with Pepe and Aubameyang. It seems unless a player is immensely gifted, they won’t make it at Arsenal.
Right now, Nelson has become a starter at Fulham, displacing Adama Traore. Smith Rowe is the fulcrum of his team, and Tavares is racking up assists for fun. Lokonga was suddenly called up to Belgium national team after three years. Why couldn’t they perform/improve like this while at Arsenal?
So if a player who was performing well, then starts underperforming, the solution is to sell him?. No thought about finding out why then?
Or actually coaching said player back to overperforming once again?
I agree with you SS, the art of coaching seems to be a disappearing art.
He is not as salient as he was two seasons ago. Is game will improve with Calafiori back and a more balanced left side. That said, Martinelli needs to go inside more often, we are playing a right footed player on the left who infrequently actually takes an inverted route. Is that him, or is it what MA tells him to do? It makes little sense to me.
Yes but I believe we should keep him another season
Martinelli is one of our very best players when on form.
True, but it’s the “when on form” that’s the tricky bit. It’s the balance between when he is and when he isn’t that will determine his fate (if it’s going to be determined anytime soon, that is).
At an estimated > £180K per week, a flopping player is expected to be more releasable than sellable: he is one Arsenal can dispend with negligible consequence.
I’m a bit divided on this one.
On the one hand you can never question his work rate, and he constantly finds himself in good positions on the left side.
But his final ball and decision making a lot of the time leaves a lot to be desired.
Now while he’s still quite young there’s still hope for him to develop into the player we all thought he would.
But at the same time, how long do you wait, there’s only so long you can wait really.
In the harsh world of football, if a player is not progressing then the club will be looking for your replacement.
As I said earlier, I’m divided on this one.
If his final ball is as you say, then why hasn’t anything been done to improve it?
Martinelli is always being marked by two players and has not had the stability that Saka has had with White.
If we’re not careful, Martinelli will go the same way as ESR.
same way as Tierney, unable to develop his game, left behind
I think at best Martinelli should be a squad player I do think we should look to replace him because, for a long moment, Saka has been our only star forward Martinelli could still be useful to Arsenal coming on when players are tiring or hopefully being a decent back up should the starter get injured so, in my opinion, we need to add star power to the frontline and have decent numbers there so even though I don’t rate Martinelli as high as many AFC fans do I’d still keep him around
feels like we have been waiting for Martinelli to play himself back in to form for 2 years
sadly the same issues of poor decision making, poor finishing, and being too predictable so too easy to defend against are the same as two years ago – seems to have stalled in his development, if this is Martinelli peak/ceiling then regrettably he is not good enough to take Arsenal to the next level
Arsenal would indeed get very good money for Martinelli, selling has to be worth consideration if by the end of the season nothing has changed
Agree with this – I like martinelli, but since the season before last, he’s only played to his ability in a handful of games.
I think he’s arteta’s first choice because he works hard and does what is asked if him in terms of his movements and defending, but at some point we need to find someone who does that but also delivers consistently in attack. He’s proven he *can* do it, but he appears to be suffering some sort of mental block – you’d hope he can get through it and improve his finishing, but if we want to win a title, we can’t afford to wait in hope, we need someone who can do it now. That doesn’t mean we need to sell martinelli necessarily, but it does mean he shouldn’t be arteta’s first choice – we need someone who’s better right now, and if selling martinelli helps us get that person, it should be seriously considered.
You aren’t replacing Martinelli for less than £100m. I agree he’s been a bit off since last season and looks a bit devoid of the confidence he normally has but that’s a coaching problem in my view. Furthermore he’s had no real leftback to work with or build any relationship with for 2 years, yes we have timber now but not long enough to build an understanding, Martinelli has been playing with Zinchenko and Kiwior behind him and both of them are dog sh*t which for me is the reason his performances and thus his confidence have dropped. If Arteta can get Calafiori or Timber playing regularly as leftback it wouldn’t take long for an understanding to develop and I’m sure we’d see an improvement in Martinelli, we’ve just been unlucky with injuries so far.
No. Full stop.
No. Sell Jesus and Sterling.
Narenkl,
Sterling is only on loan to us thankfully, so no chance of any money for the club there.
But I agree with you on Jesus though.