Graeme Souness has claimed that Eddie Nketiah was the best player on the field today as Arsenal beat West Ham 2-1, admitting he was ‘amazed’ that we are allowing his contract to run out.
The Gunners are thoroughly expected to be without a senior striker when the season ends, with both Alexandre Lacazette and Nketiah into the final months of their deals, and the latter has really impressed in recent weeks after being thrust into the role.
Laca had to suffer with Coronavirus in recent weeks to give the young striker his chance to stake a claim for more regular playing time, and it is amazing that he has gone for so long with such little playing time, and the manager is the only one to blame for that.
Graeme Souness was full of praise for him after his performance today however, and went as far as to say he was ‘amazed’ that he is being allowed to run his contract down.
‘Arsenal deserved to win the game, Arsenal were a good team today,’ Souness said on Sky Sports (via the Metro).
‘I thought the second half they found another yard, ok it was two defenders who got them the goals, but I still think they deserved to win the game.
‘Nketiah, I thought was the best player on the pitch today.
‘He was always threatening, he had a couple of shots where he came in on his right foot and made the goalkeeper work.
‘You always want him to run forward, stretch the defender. His contract is about to run out and I’m amazed at that, I really am.
‘He will not be short of teams wanting him. I really like him, I thought he was fabulous.’
I’ve been one to praise Nketiah a number of times in the last 12 months, and have been a little miffed at the fact he has had such little opportunity, either coming on too late to properly get into matches or not at all, and I for one am certainly not surprised at his performance today.
It’s actually a shame that he was alone a lot of the time, and deserved a goal for his efforts, but I’m sure he will enjoy a fine career wherever he ends up this summer, assuming that there won’t be a twist in the tale after his recent performances.
Could Arsenal still persuade Eddie to stay?
Patrick
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I’m still not quite there. If be happy if he stayed but wouldn’t be devastated if he left. He is looking so much better but I’m still wanting to see better finishing from him as it will hold him back from being a top level striker – he had 3 chances to show his shooting ability and couldn’t quite find the mark (although they were decent attempts). However, you can’t fault his mentality, work rate and general team play.
Massive turn around this kid has made, he looks alert there is no telling with better service what he could have done.
Kudos Eddie, you’ve bounced back big time
Considering his youth form as good min as Balogun, u-21 england goal scoring out right record holder that he took from Shearer, Carabao cup record and the fact he’s started 15 league games starting at the age of 18 (0 only subs) until now 22 (4 games.) 3.75 starts a season in those 4 years. Tough to say he turned it around. Made a lot of late sub appearances at various points that made a lot of people comfortable spouting negative about him but that is just odd.
Could someone remind me why he doesn’t want to stay?this saga has been going on for so long that I have forgotten the reason!!
I don’t know but I’d assume he wants to play more games
Think it all comes down to game time, he had gotten a run in the team earlier this season ahead of Laca and did absolutely nothing
I think Eddie, to his credit, has been quite clear – he wants game time. He’s getting it now and starting to show some of his potential. If he thinks he will get starts next year, I think he stays as Arteta is on record as saying he wants him to sign.
Doesn’t mean we don’t need a top signing up front though.
Eddie is gone but guys dont worry we have balogun the thing is we need a senior striker let balogun be 2nd striker he is in my opinion better than Eddie let’s pay 80 million euro for that Nunez benfica guy and rotate him with balogun
The same Eddie that was receiving all sorts of insult from arsenal fans on JA. During d same game.
If you are not watching our live game and u come to JA to read comment on the live game, the arsenal fans comment will make u think we are losing 6 to nothing even while we are winning. Someone even said Eddie is a championship level player with no brain just 10 minutes into the game. Some said Gabriel is sh*t and he still got us d winning goal.
We arsenal fans need to take a chill pill this guys have tried all season to got us to where we are
Gabriel is now a marquee defender also he scores the most goals this season as a center back.
One could easily say Eddie was the best player on the pitch today.
So am not sure which game the critics were watching
Considering that a number of Gooners were openly and foolishly, IMO, calling for Lacas contract to be extended and, like me too, did not rate Nketiah much at all, there has been a sea change this last month or less.
NOW, It seems that many still refuse to see what to me is now plain; that we have a decent future striker in Nketiah and MUST try to tempt him to extend his contract. We will have huge egg on our faces now, IF we blithely let Eddie go on a free elsewhere, when we badly need TWO proper strikers next season.
Personally, I NOW think we need only one, plus to keep Eddie. I WAS hugely wrong but have seen and accept the huge change and progress that is now obvious to some but not, sigh, to all.
I agree Jon.
Any chance of a reprieve for Granit???
Well PAT, I am hard on some players when I see them as not the standard we need. Xhaka has certainly been a long term target of mine.
So will I reconsider now that he has had a better run , of late? Answer : I need to see this sort of current form extended and maintained for some time to come- since I STILL SEE HIS LACK OF MOBILITY AND PACE AS KEY WEAKNESSES- before remotely being tempted to reconsider He is soon 30 and,unlike Eddie at 22, will never improve MASSIVELY and consistently.
So my honest answer to your legit question is this ” I never say never but as an odds maker I give myself less than 1% chance of reconsidering”. Which, effectively speaking, means NO!
A think the gaffer knows more than anyone else we need an attack bully someone with twenty goals a season.
So regardless if Eddie stays or we sign Jesus the need will be still there.
Nketiah has not shown Arsenal enough to say we should keep him. He isnt a top striker but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be. His problem is he has no stand out quality, he isnt particularly good in the air, he isn’t especially good at holding the ball up, he is good in the 6 yard box, quite fast and doesn’t set up many chances for others. If he stays great, if he doesn’t good luck too him.
He should not stay at Arsenal yesterday a top striker would have gotten at least 3 goals he is not what we need he doesn’t score goals
Elneny is becoming mr. reliable at the right time for us,
Eddie is working hard but needs to improve his dribbling
skills.
Eddie should next time move closer to gk’s before shooting since he is not confident about his long range strikes or maybe dribble past em just like he did to meslier at EFL.
If Arsenal make it to the CL and Eddie is given a nice long term contract, I dont see any reason why he wont stay. We could sign one more top CF and invest the remaining amount on the midfield and fullback positions.
And Reis Nelson is not doing badly recently. We may not need many new signings in the summer.
It’s not like they haven’t tried to sign him. The only real mistake IMO was not giving him a more of a chance sooner despite Auba and Laca’s inability to score goals because apparently he just needed more of a run out.
A little hard to throw too much blame though without knowing what he is showing in training and given that he never generally looked unconvincing when called on up until very recently…
Anyways, now he’s finally taking the chance and perhaps if he helps us secure UCL he’ll be more likely to stick around knowing he’s much more likely to continue to see the game time he wants.
generally looked unconvincing is what I meant to say…