Author Archives: keenosafc

Arsenal do not see Nwaneri as “Saka cover”

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With all the talk around Rodrygo, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke, playing time for Ethan Nwaneri has been a valid concern to raise.

Last week, as speculation around Madueke to Arsenal intensified, there was talk that Chelsea were monitoring Nwaneri’s contract negotiations, with the Englishman’s contract set to expire in 12 months time.

Concerns over playing time

There is no doubt that Ethan Nwaneri is a huge talent. But he should have no concerns around his playing time.

Last season, only 5 players aged 18 or under (at the end of the season) played more minutes than Nwaneri.

At 889 minutes, Nwaneri played 585 minutes more than the next player that finished in a Champions League spot – Newcastle’s Lewis Miley with 304 minutes. And last seasons data shows that Arsenal are the best option for a top young player to get minutes:

Myles Lewis-Skelly (Arsenal) – 1371 minutes
Ethan Nwaneri (Arsenal) – 889
Lewis Miley (Newcastle) – 304
Tyrique George (Chelsea) – 178
Josh Acheampong (Chelsea) – 169
Jahmai Simpson-Pusey (Manchester City) – 95
Marc Guiu (Chelsea) – 70
Jayden Dennis (Liverpool) – 10
Mathis Amougou (Chelsea) – 7
Claudio Echeverri (Manchester City) – 5

Last season, Nwaneri played more minutes than every other player aged 18 or under at Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Newcastle combined.

If you are good enough, you will get the chances. And both Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly have shown that this season. But whilst Lewis-Skelly has been staring for the England senior national team, Nwaneri found himself on the bench for the majority of the triumphant England U21 team.

Whilst that does not make Nwaneri a bad player – he was the youngest player in the squad and 4-years younger than “hero of the tournament Harvey Elliott” – it shows that he is perhaps not ready yet to be flung into senior football at a top club. But if he continues progressing, he will get that chance.

Why join Chelsea?

If Nwaneri is reluctant to sign a new contract as he is concerned about game time, he either needs to be looking at a move to someone lower in the league (such as Bournemouth), or a move away from England. What he should not be doing is looking at Chelsea.

As it stands, Chelsea have a first team senior squad of around 31 players. And that does not include the talented youngsters that do not require registering. Once they are included, Chelsea’s squad will be closer to 40.

You would have to be crazy to move to Chelsea if you are concerned about playing time at your current club. And Exhibit A is former Arsenal starlet Omari Hutchinson.

Hutchinson left us for Chelsea having refused to sign a new deal as he wanted guarantees of playing time, and no a loan deal tp a Championship club.

A year after joining Chelsea, having made just 1 Premier League appearance, he was loaned to Ipswich Town in the Championship. He had basically wasted a year of his career, as that was the sort of loan deal Arsenal were lining up 12 months earlier.

Following his influence in Suffolk as Ipswich got promoted, the Tractor Boy’s signed Hutchinson on a permanent deal. After 2 years and just that 1 Premier League appearance since leave Arsenal, he had left Chelsea.

There are also examples in Manchester with Chido Obi Martin and Ayden Heaven. Both men left Arsenal for “more game time” and a “clearer route to the first XI”. Despite taking a step down to Manchester United, the pair players 160 and 171 minutes respectively.

Taking into account our striker issues last year, you have to feel Obi Martin would have got 3 or 4 times more that game time had he signed at Arsenal.

If Nwaneri wants game time, he is best signing a new deal at Arsenal and continuing his development. If in 12-months he has played less time than this season, it will mean he has not progressed as expected and the door will be open for him to search for gametime elsewhere.

The future

The majority of Nwaneri’s minutes last season came as Bukayo Saka’s cover, and the feeling was he would continue to step up into that role this season. But it looks like Mikel Arteta et al have other plans.

With the speculation around Noni Madueke increasing at a rapid speed, it looks like the Chelsea right winger is being lined up to be cover for Saka. And Madueke is currently at a higher level than Nwaneri.

That would not leave Nwaneri as “3rd choice right winger”. More he would become Martin Odegaard’s cover playing a little bit more centrally.

Throughout his youth career and his young senior career, the feeling was Nwaneri was better suite centrally than on the wing – he lack that half yard of pace that would be a differential in certain situations.

Prior to the Madueke news, every “2025/26 squad” I had written had Nwaneri basically backing up both Odegaard and Saka (with a little help from Gabriel Jesus and whoever was recruited on the left). It would be a big ask for an 18-year-old to be your cover for 2 positions.

If we recruit Madueke, it would result in him being Saka’s cover, and Nwaneri covering for Odegaard. In turn that would see Fabio Vieira be allowed to depart either or on loan or permanently. I could easily see this for squad depth next season:

Rodrygo Rice Odegaard Saka
Eze Merino Nwaneri Madueke

And it is easy to forget that Nwaneri is still just 18.

In 5-years time, Odegaard will be 31 and Nwaneri just 23. This is the sort of thing we will be showing Nwaneri and his people if he is concerned about game time.

Be Odegaard’s understudy, you will get 1000+ minutes next season, and long term you can replace him. And we should use Phil Foden as the blue print of how we will progress him into the first team.

Foden at 22 – 2134 Premier League minutes
Foden at 21 – 1614
Foden at 20 – 893
Foden at 19 – 329
Foden at 18 – 44

What Nwaneri is doing at 18 is more than what Foden was doing at 20. Although that has to be tempered with City having more squad depth so Foden had to be playing at an even higher level – a level he did not reach until he was 20.

I see no reason why, at 19, Nwaneri could not clock up 1600+ minutes in the Premier League next season. And then kick on to 2000+ a year later.

If that is not enough of a pathway to keep Nwaneri at the club, then it is clear that the only reason he might leave is for the money. And if he wishes to go to Manchester United or Chelsea, earn £100k a week in their chaos and disappear into obscurity, then so be it.

For now, the path is clear for Nwaneri. He is Odegaard’s cover and long term replacement. That should be more than enough to encourage him to sign.

Enjoy your Monday.

Keenos

Arsenal’s big week starts today

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Does the week start in a Sunday or Monday? I forgot. Regardless, today is the start of a huge 7-days for The Arsenal.

The first team return to the club next week to commence pre-season training.

This is a huge season for Mikel Arteta. One where he needs to turn Arsenal from also-rans to winners. Silverware has to be delivered to back up the huge gains we have made as a club under him.

And to help with the quest for trophies, we need to start seeing players come through the door.

Long term followers of me will know that I am not too concerned when we have a perceived “slow start” to a transfer window.

I do not get my knickers in the twist and do not think we should be signing players early just for the sake of positive PR.

It is better to sign the right players, rather than sign the wrong players just because deals could be done early. And whilst 95% of Arsenal fans realise this, this is a loud minority who cry about us not yet signing anyone beyond a top second class keeper.

All this changes once we are back for pre-season. If we want a fast start we need the bulk of our deals done. Not necessarily done for next Monday, but at least ahead of when we play AC Milan in 17 days time.

But this week we should see at least 2 or 3 new names come through the door to join Kepa. And that could increase.

We have known for some time that Martin Zubimendi and Christian Norgaard were done deals. Must of us expected them to be announced towards the back end of last week, but this was seemingly delayed by the club due to the passing of Diogo Jota.

This shows how classy we are as a club that we delay transfers deals out of respect of the death of another teams player.

Zubimendi and Norgaard will be announced shortly. Maybe even today. And then following them I would expect Cristhian Mosquera to shortly be announced.

Arsenal and Valencia are yet to agree a fee, but it would in would be expect this to be done this week – Mosquera has made it very clear he has not intention of singing a new deal, and has only 12 months remaining on his current one.

Mosquera wants Arsenal. Arsenal want Mosquera.

Another close to be done is Noni Madueke from Chelsea.

Now I am not overly excited by Madueke, however this feels like a market opportunity to sign quality cover for Bukayo Saka.

The Englishman is apparently on just £60-65k a week at Chelsea. Arsenal could easily add £40-50k to that without breaking he age structure for a squad player.

As for the fee, I think it will be done for something in the region of £35m. This would represent a profit for Chelsea and get a player off their books (at last check, they had 31 senior players, of which only 25 can be registered).

I don’t think you are getting much better than Madueke for £35m and £100k a week.T

his certainly feels like a market opportunity and would enable us to rest Saka for 10 Premier League games a season.

Madueke is also both a good substitute to have in attacking and defensive situations.

Struggling to break a team down? Saka not quite doing it? A fresh Madueke for 20 minutes could be devastating. Meanwhile, if we are holding onto a 1-nil lead, he provides raw pace to hit teams on the break if defending deep.

On top of the above, there is still Rodrygo, Sesko / Gyorekes and Eze to talk about.

Rodrygo will only progress once the Club World Cup is over. And even then it will unlikely happen before August with Rodrygo likely disappearing for a few weeks on holiday.

Gyorekes is one that could happen this week.

Whilst I think Sesko was our primary target, my belief is that we have become frustrated with both RB Liepzig and the Slovenian.

We were told 12 months by his people to “come back in a year and he will be ready to move”. That year has passed and it feels like we are in the same situation. There just doesn’t seem to be the motivation from his side to get a deal done.

Meanwhile Gyorekes has been twerking for us all summer.

Rumour has it that he gets paid 10% of any official offer that Sporting Lisbon reject above £60m. I am not sure how true this is and it would be an incredible clause that could change football. A new version of a release clause where instead of clubs having to sell, they have to pay the player for rejecting a deal.

So if this clause is true and we come in with a £65m big for Gyorekes, that will cost sporting £6.5m for the rejecting. And if they are after (say) £75m, then more than half of that extra £10m has been eaten up by their rejection of the initial bid.

I think once we submit an official bid for Gyorekes, it’ll happen quick.

Finally we have Eze.

At first, I could not really see how Rodrygo, Eze and Madueke could fit together as new signings. But all indicators are that none of the deals affect each other and we can sign all 3. That would only mean two things

Number one is that Trossard is out (with his place in the squad taken by Eze). Number two is that Martinelli is gone (to be replaced by Rodrygo). And then Madueke is the Saka back up we have been crying out for for a couple of years.

It would amount to a huge turnover in attacking players, but it could work.

The combined fees of Eze and Rodrygo would like be £140m (£60m for Eze, £80m for Rodrygo). That would easily be supplemented by Martinelli and Trossard exciting to Saudi.

We would likely expect £80m for Martinelli, and £20m for Trossard. So upgrading them to Eze and Rodrygo would cost us a net £40m.

I do not want to see Martinelli go. I would prefer to keep him as the cover for Rodrygo. But we might need the sale to make this window work.

And if he departs, and we get the deals done, we would be left with Saka, Rodrygo, Madueke, Eze and Nwaneri as our wing options. That is a huge upgrade on last season.

This week could be huge.

Keenos

State of Arsenal report: 2025/26

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With all the debate around incomings, one thing has not yet really been spoken about this summer – how the squad is looking in terms of numbers.

Every year, I write a State of Arsenal report. Rather than focusing on positions we need to improve on, etc, the report is takes on how many players we have in the squad, how many of these are non-home grown and how many do not require registering.

Once you get an understanding of the squad places available, you then realise how many players Arsenal could sign, what country they can come from, and who we need to sell if space is needed to be freed up.

Now this is being written on Friday 27 June, before any new players have been signed. I have excluded those players (including Thomas Partey) whose contracts are expiring on 30 June.

By now, you should know the rules. But in case you have been living under a rock for the last 20 years, here are the Premier League rules are:

  • Teams may register up to 25 players
  • No more than 17 “non-home grown” players may be registered
  • You do not need to register Under-21 players who been born on or after 1 January 2004.

So what does Arsenal’s squad look like?

Now what is interesting straight off the bat is just how small the Arsenal squad is right now.

Including Miles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri, who do not need to be registered as they are U21, we have a first team squad of 23. This increases to 24 if you include teenage keeper Tommy Setford. However, only 21 players need to be registered.

This is further proof as to why the likes of Kepa (2nd choice keeper), Christian Norgaard (4th choice midfielder) and Cristhian Mosquera (Saliba back up) are essential signings this summer.

Whilst they might not be the big names some were after, and none are the forwards we need, they were signings we needed to make.

Those 3, alongside Martin Zubimendi, will take our squad to 27 players (I have excluded Setford as he is 4th choice keeper). 25 of whom will be registered.

That leaves us no more room for a new left winger or striker. We would also be bang on the non-home grown requirement. However we need to factor in outgoings.

Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riess Nelson are two players that are very obviously “surplus to requirements”. I think we would all be surprised if either of them pull on an Arsenal shirt next season.

Just those two sales bring us back down to 23 registered players. However, with only Zinchenko departing as a non-home grown player, we would only have one free space on that side of the squad.

That would mean of the striker and winger we need, one would have to be home grown – which is why the links with Eberechi Eze are perhaps popping up. The alternative is we sell further players, or do not register than.

Albert Sambi Lokonga is another who will likely be told to look for a new club (once Norgaard is signed), whilst Fabio Vieira is another that will likely depart. One of these two departin will clear the space for us to sign a striker and winger from whichever country we like.

On top of that, you have Takehiro Tomiyasu and Gabriel Jesus. Both men are long term injured. Again.

Gabriel Jesus is not expected back until “late 2025”, whilst no update has been provided for Tomiyasu. Due to their status on the medical table, I would be surprised if either are sold this summer.

The likelihood is they will be registered to play if the squad space is available come 31 August. If it is not, expect them both to be left unregistered. I imagine both would then be moved on in the summer.

So that State of Arsenal? We are in a good place. We do not really need to sell to buy initially to free up space. and we have some very obvious candidates that will likely be moved on to free up space.

Enjoy your Saturday.

Keenos