My Eze Conundrum

The vibes are great but where does he fit. Why would Arsenal spend first XI money on a player that doesn't have a first XI spot?

There are rarely links to a player for Arsenal that earn nearly universal positive reaction from this fanbase.

Eberechi Eze has become one of those players. He is basically the polar opposite of one Arsenal’s other links this summer in Noni Madueke.

If you watch the player and especially if you watch the comps of him, you can get why that excitement is there. The player has that special je ne sais quoi with how he plays that makes you forget things for a few minutes.

It is a magical quality. I wrote this the first time I looked at him:

Does he have a nailed-on position? Not really, he’s a bit of a tweener between a midfielder, winger, and striker.

Does he fully fit with the type of player that Areta has targeted for that advanced midfield role? Again, not particularly, with him favoring the more off ball second striker types in Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino, before potentially grooming Declan Rice for that spot.

Is he exciting and just a baller that I am prepared to sort of just forget all of that and hope that you can just figure it out along the way? Oh yes, I am.

I am there with the people wanting to forget about everything and just bring him hoping to figure out the rest later.

While I love that feeling, it goes against my feelings as an analyst that I can just leave the very big red flag of well where do we actually play this player if he signs with Arsenal?

I did a very unscientific polling of my followers to get a feel for how our fans rate him in the head-to-head matchups to get an idea of some clarity here.

My view on the player is that he is an interior player, and given that he likes to drift left from those starting positions in Arsenal’s 4-3-3 base formation the first comparable player is Declan Rice.

When asked, there was a pretty small minority that thought he would start more often than Rice here.

I get that, Rice is Arsenal’s record signing and the team’s player of the season.

The at least little bit funny part here is that I do love the profile of Eze in this spot much more. I have made no secret that I want a second highly technical player in that spot to pair with Odegaard, especially if Arsenal are going with a more true 9 in front of them instead of a player like Gabriel Jesus there.