Legendary former Arsenal striker Ian Wright has stated that Eddie Nketiah will have been disappointed after the Gunners’ match against Manchester City.
Mikel Arteta named Eddie Nketiah in his starting XI on Sunday, as Arsenal welcomed Manchester City to the Emirates Stadium. In what was a cagey affair, the north London club were able to secure a 1-0 win.
Nketiah played his part in the triumph. His performance was not lacking in effort or industry, as the 24-year-old striker sought to consistently press and pressurise Manchester City players when they were in possession.
Going forward, though, the £100,000-a-week Hale End academy graduate was a peripheral figure. Goalscoring opportunities were always going to be few and far between against such impressive opposition, but Nketiah was utterly unable to muster up any real threat.
Nketiah has to strive for higher level
Ian Wright feels that, despite being on the winning side, Nketiah won’t be happy with how this match panned out for him personally. Speaking on his podcast, Wrighty’s House, he said, “it’s a situation where the only thing with Eddie [Nketiah], I thought he worked his socks off and it’s very tough.”
“Against Manchester City, your chances are few and far between. If you do get one, you’ve got to make sure you do the very best you can with it.”
“At the very least you’ve got to do a lot of running the other way, a lot of that kind of stuff. And I think that it maybe took its toll on him in this game and he’ll probably be feeling a little bit disappointed simply because he didn’t get too many chances. He did a lot of work and he got taken off in the end.”
Arteta did opt to take Nketiah off in the 75th minute, with £65 million summer signing Kai Havertz coming on to lead the line in his place. The German was able to have a tangible impact on proceedings. He laid on the assist for Gabriel Martinelli’s match-winning goal, and used his physicality well to help Arsenal protect their lead.
If Nketiah is to make himself a key figure at Arsenal for the long term then he needs to find a way of being able to impose himself on such big matches. At this stage in his career, he needs to offer more against top opposition if he is to ever establish himself as an elite-level forward.
Ultimately, Nketiah should be pleased to have been on the winning side, but this match showed that there is room for improvement in his game.
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