Calls for Nwaneri to be a consistent starter are understandable but his second half display against Newcastle shows Arteta is right to ease him in.
Some Gooners can agree with me that Ethan Nwaneri went missing after his earlier than usual introduction in the second half against Newcastle. Apart from a few bright spots like drawing a yellow card offence from Joe Willock and a lovely cross field run, then you can clearly see he wasn’t as influential as some of us may have hoped.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not an article critiquing the youngster, in fact I’m thinking of the exact opposite given the high ceiling he has in his career ahead and also his age.
When he was about to be substituted on in the 60th minute or thereabout, the level of excitement within me was through the roof, however I quickly reasoned the kind of game we were going to bring him in.
Newcastle away is always a physical and scrappy game so I feared for how the 17 year old Nwaneri would fare in this atmosphere, surely enough my fears were seemingly justified a few seconds in when he got clattered by Joe Willock, he survived that scare however, but he found it difficult to impose himself as the game went on.
I think Arteta is right to ease him in considering the amount of pressure that will be forced upon him to be our chief creator in midfield while we await the return of Ødegaard.
Furthermore, his not so good performance against Newcastle should remind us that he won’t deliver immediately and especially against these sort of opposition.
I still loved the fact that Arteta gave him a chance earlier though which I think should be a regular theme going forward this season.
Thoughts on this gooners?
KENNETH BENJAMIN.
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