Eddie Nketiah has taken his chance

Nketiah has come in and Arsenal haven't missed a beat, that is really the best compliment you can give a backup player.

Jan 20, 2023

This might still be a bit premature but I think this is an excellent time to reevaluate how the Eddie Nketiah as a starter in the absence of Gabriel Jesus experiment has gone.

There was a lot of worry in the wake of the knee injury news to Jesus (I was not immune and went and placed a bet on Manchester City to win he title to help hedge/reverse jinx). In these here pages I was a bit calmer and wrote this:

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I have written previously on Eddie Nketiah and I think that he is going to get the first chance to prove the faith given to him was not misplaced. He probably has something like three to five matches to go and prove himself before the team will need to make a decision.
Making any sort of confident prognostication about Nketiah remains hard. He has played well when he has played, but he also hasn’t played all that much to feel confident about any of the stats over his time with Arsenal.
Could he be a good enough player to cover the absence of Jesus? YES, that is in the range of outcomes. Could he end up looking like a player that is out of his depth and looks more like a player that should be well away from a key role at a club with top-of-table asperations? Also yes.

We are at the end of the three to five matches having played four League matches and one FA Cup match.

Nketiah has started all five of those matches producing 4 goals (2 in the League and 2 in the FA Cup). He has made my (rather slight) skepticism look misplaced and my cautious optimism look too guarded.

In the Premier League since taking over as the starter he is doing the things we expect from him as very good player around the box taking 2.5 shots per 90, getting 0.7 non-penalty xG, on 0.26 xG per shot, on 8.5 touches within 25 yards of goal.

His numbers for the season with this run look quite impressive (small sample caveats).

I love that he is doing this with a classic Eddie shot chart, with half of this shots coming within 13 yards of goal. He has a reputation as a poacher and that really does come through in the numbers. He has a great knack for finding and creating space to shoot from.

He is also backing that up with solid link play, he has been involved in 0.5 xG per 90 in the buildup (excluding taking the shot or making the final pass), with 0.2 Goal Probability Added, while averaging 26 passes received.

It feels like he has been with Arsenal for a long time (well because he has) but he is still a young player, he is about 18 months older than the young raw Mykhailo Mudryk to give this a little context.

When he has been given the chance to start with the first team over his career he has looked promising. It is still a smallish sample size (1800 minutes over 4 seasons) but it is becoming clear that when he plays with the real first-team Arsenal players he can be a contributor; perhaps he isn’t good enough on his own to lift second-tier players to a new level but that is something that we wouldn’t expect from too many players, especially ones dependent on service in the box.

If Arsenal were linked to this type of player from another team rather than having been signed to stay on last year I think fans would be quite happy and excited to see what he could potentially provide. I think he has repaid the faith the team put in him in the summer when they gave him a big contract (but not that large of an actual investment).

The best compliment that I think you can give him is looking at the way Arsenal have performed with him in the team. Looking at the team both before and after he became the starter, it would be hard to tell the difference in overall performances from when he took over as the starter.

It is fair to say Eddie has taken his chance.

Week 21 Odds

It has been a good couple of weeks for Arsenal. They are sitting in a very good spot with a five point lead (and a game in hand). It might look a little scary when Arsenal play with that potentially down to 2 points but they will guarantee that they have another full week in first place regardless.

They will be favorites up against United who had a very short title challenge, but are still a good team. This week they have moved above Newcastle to be the third rated team even if they are still quite a bit back from Arsenal.

It is going to a big match at the Emirates and hopefully Arsenal can avenge their only loss of the season.

The rest of the Premier League matches

St. Totteringham’s Day Watch

It is looking good for a St. Totterinham’s day, up to 99.61% in my latest simulation.