Arsenal face a busy festive period and the Gunners will need some of their attackers to step up, if they are to start scoring again in the Premier League.
As JB & PB discussed on the latest episode of The Fresh Arsenal Podcast, many opportunities for young players are born out of injuries. Saka’s main breakthrough came at left back, when there were no senior options for that position. Nelson now has an opportunity to break into a front three that has been dysfunctional and underdelivering in many aspects.
Nicolas Pepe will now be suspended for three Premier League games, Willian has been in poor form and Aubameyang is shifting centrally, so it creates space of Nelson to perhaps feature in the Premier League. Nelson has so far only been given 45 minutes of Premier League football this season, and that came in the second half against Leeds, following Willian’s injury and then Pepe’s red card, which saw Reiss have to do a lot of defending during that time.
Nelson has been lively in the Europa League this season and was impressive again last night as he scored the second goal in Arsenal’s 3-0 victory in Norway. Nelson is still only 20 years old, and although it seems he has been around forever, there’s plenty of time for him to still realise the huge amount of potential he has.
“He’s made some big steps in the last month or so,” said Mikel Arteta when asked what Nelson needs to do to get a run in the side.
“He’s shown what he can do. Again, he’s another player that wants to take you on all the time, he’s very vertical, he’s a great player when he runs in behind and he’s very unpredictable.
“I really like these types of players to play in the wide positions. Defensively, there are things that he needs to do better and he will improve in that but he’s a much more mature player.
“He showed a great attitude, in my opinion, to say that he didn’t want to leave on loan because he belives that he’s got a chance to play for this football club. He’s showing that he wants to take that direction. He’s performing in the right way.”
Let’s see how Nelson performs in December, hopefully he can step up.