As a compare/contrast (hopefully this doesn’t lead to egg on my face) but from the first minute we saw Ekitike, he looked a player. Great movement, silky touch, battled hard, shielding and fighting for the ball, came deep looking for it, passed well and showed a composed finish.
I don’t know how high his ceiling is going to be, and how much the possible signing of Isak will make a difference if Ekitike is moved or rotated, but the first glimpse we have had of him tells us the lad can definitely play, and we have every reason to be hopeful about what he might do.
I do agree that his performance was garbage. I think a better indicator will be Arsenal’s next game, which at home against Leeds. I think playing away in traditionally one of your side’s biggest fixtures can be excused. If he stinks the gaff out against Leeds, then I think it may be a slight concern.
I bet after all this, he scores against us at the end of the month.
I think this goes back to the distinction I made above. If it was just that he was quiet than you can very much excuse that, especially for a guy who arrived late in pre-season and has a team who need to get used to him as much as the other way around. But it was worse than that. When he got the opportunity to get involved he was shit and fucked up pretty much everything he touched. Sometimes things arent working for you. But sometimes players find themselves out of their depth, and this looks every bit the latter (albeit a conclusion I was already committed to from what I had already seen of him)
There is a delightful middle ground here where his athleticism and Arsenal’s overall game dominance allows him score a respectable number of goals, but doing so in a way that makes them worse. But he’s scoring enough to make it difficult for Arteta to drop him. I think this is a more likely outcome than the one where he is a proper success who shoots them to trophies.
The idea of Arsenal having to adapt to a totally different sort of player in Gyokeres and then abruptly change course by Merino now being his replacement is amazing stuff.
Arsenal now apparently going for Eze from Palace due to Havertz injury, Spurs fans are understandably taking this news extremely well and being most complimentary towards Daniel Levy
