It's Eddie time
Regardless of what goes down in the window, Eddie Nketiah is due for another run of starts. What should we make of his performances in the season thus far? What should we expect in the games to come?
You know the score by now:
Gabriel Jesus is likely out for a couple of months with a knee injury.
With reports swirling about links to Mykhailo Mudryk and João Félix, it is still currently most likely that Eddie Nketiah will be the starting 9 for the immediate run of games ahead, if not longer.
Down the stretch last year, he scored 5 goals in his last 7 starts, earning him a new long-term deal with the club, as well as the #14.
He’s yet to net a Premier League start or goal this year, and finished the Europa League group stage with 2 goals in 6 starts. He’s been mostly productive in the ancillary contests (friendlies + EFL Cup).
There have been some updates to his game, both noticeable and subtle.
With all that said: what should we reasonably expect from Nketiah moving forward? To what degree can we expect a jump in his production while playing with the A team? How has he updated his game, and how does it compare to that of Jesus?
I’m counting this as a late-late-late Sunday BBQ. Here’s your plate of meats. 🍖
How did Nketiah look against Lyon?
Eddie flashed an expansive positional sense early.
In the sixth minute, Sambi had just delivered the ball to Gabriel and started a standard build-up sequence. Lyon is defending in a 4-4-2, with their backline four outnumbering the Arsenal attack.
How do you get numbers? You move.
Nketiah sees Tierney holding width, and starts cutting across zones. Ødegaard notices the same, and moves to fill the central position…
…now Gabriel delivers the ball up to Tierney, who attracts a defender. Nketiah continues to notice the opportunity for an overload and moves over to the touchline, while Nelson cuts through the half-space to fill his position…
…and that’s how you flip the numbers. Two defenders are now guarding air on the far side, while on the near side, one is left to match both Nketiah and Nelson. Tierney delivers a ball down the line to Nketiah who gets to dribble into the box virtually unmarked, and notch a pass to Nelson that he bangs off the post.
In 68 minutes, he hit 17 of 20 passes (85%), knocked in the goal on a counter, and accepted the ball all over the pitch (including one sick control in the lead-up to the Vieira goal). In transition, he did a great job of dragging defenders away from Vieira, Ødegaard, and Nelson to give them space to operate.
It was a friendly, of course, but an encouraging one for the weeks ahead.
How have his performances compared to those of Jesus?
Below, I pulled Wyscout data from all competitive fixtures to date — so this includes all Premier League, Europa League, and EFL Cup appearances.
As always, the caveats are big: the competition level for Jesus has been much higher; the bulk of Jesus’ appearances have been with the A team; the sample size is double; and Nketiah is more likely to enter when “situational” play is needed, which we’ll cover later.
Still, this should give us something to start with:
As you’ll see, Jesus is ahead in almost every category, as would be expected. They both have underperformed their xG, and Jesus is more active overall: receiving more passes, disrupting more play, dribbling more, and touching the ball in the box more often. That said, the differences are seldom enormous. Looking at this data, it’s reasonable to conclude that Arsenal has a star striker and a capable backup.
That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. If one were looking for reasons to expect a jump when Nketiah joins the regular starters, one can look to Jesus himself: in six appearances out of league with the rotational squad (~209 minutes), his production also dropped, with zero goals and one assist.
In league, however, there are enormous boots to fill. Jesus hasn’t been good — he’s been one of the most pivotal players in the world. Warning: a tour through his fb-ref is likely to make you even sadder about his injury:
It’s difficult to expect Nketiah (or any player) to reach Jesus’ heights of production in terms of overall impact, disruption, touches, fouls won, and shot-creating actions. The hope, then, is two-fold: (1) the entire team works together to offset some of Jesus’ absence in build-up and pressing; and (2) Nketiah bangs in goals at higher efficiency to offset Jesus’ absence elsewhere.
Can he do it? Let’s keep digging.
How much can we learn from looking at Nketiah’s performances this year?
Looking at his year in totality, it can feel like a difficult sample from which to draw conclusions. For one, he’s yet to start a Premier League game. Due to Arsenal’s run of form, his late entries have usually been when the team is closing out a victory in a more defensive lean. Against Leeds, for example, he came on alongside Rob Holding at 82’, as the team moved to a parked 5-3-2.
There were a couple exceptions to this. Against Fulham, where the team went down 1-0, Nketiah came on for Tierney. The team clawed back a 2-1 win with something more approximating an attacking 3-5-2, featuring Jesus and Nketiah up top. Arteta tried something similar against United, to worse results (that didn’t reflect on Nketiah).
The Europa League group stage was strange. (Ugly is another way to put it. I already vowed to never speak of it again. I’ll momentarily break that vow.)
Starting every game alongside a rotating cast, Nketiah began strong against Zürich, notching a goal, and an assist to Marquinhos (which wasn’t credited because of a slight deflection). Then there were the reschedulings. Then he scored again at home against Bodø/Glimt. Then the Arctic Circle turf game, the fixture pile-up, and the starts at left-wing. While topping the group, the lineups never fully gelled, and the ball progression understandably dropped off from the beautiful fluidity of the regular starters.
In total, there are all of four competitive fixtures where Nketiah started at striker which were not played on frozen concrete:
8 September: 2-1 win at Zürich (Europa)
6 October: 3-0 win against Bodø/Glimt (Europa)
27 October: 2-0 loss against PSV (Europa)
9 November: 3-1 loss against Brighton (EFL)
You can’t totally discount the other appearances: form is form is form, and players awaiting perfect circumstances to shine tend to keep waiting. But it’s worth observing with all the context we have.
What’s gone well?
While his Premier League appearances haven’t resulted in goals, his familiar impact has been felt in other ways. Out of possession, his work-rate has been tireless, running at opponents in build-up with a mix of directness and savvy feints. He currently leads the whole damn league in fouls per 90 (with 3.9), which isn’t a knock given the situation—he’s often just disrupting play and minimizing the chances of late equalizers, and isn’t at risk of accumulation so late. In possession in the league, he often operates as a primary outlet up top, in charge of keeping the ball with minimal help.
When he starts, there are two areas of Nketiah’s game where he seems to have made some tangible improvements. The first is in his positional sense.
Across competitions, he’s learned from the best, and been able to generate more touches for himself this year by being more flexible with his locations and not “awaiting service.” Partly due to Arsenal’s improvements in possession, Nketiah has raised his overall touches, as well as his touches in the attacking third, and is best when accepting on the move.
Against Lyon, his most frequent passing partner was Tierney.
Here, Nketiah comes down from a central position after identifying a lane for an inverted Tierney…
…holding the play up, Nketiah delivers it to Tierney, who cuts through the vacated zone. Eddie whips around and they start a controlled attacking sequence.
His passes have also been a bit more incisive. He’s passing at higher volumes and higher success rates, and he’s doubled his accurate longball output (from .54 to 1.08 per 90). Because he’s accepting the ball deeper in a team that plays more advanced, that means the likelihood of progressive passes increases, as do changes of play.
Against Leeds, he kicked off a break, and delivered a power longball to a sprinting Martinelli. Martinelli’s first touch was in the final third.
And finally, while we’re in the “what went well” section, I must include the curling one-touch banger against Brighton that was fitting of the number on his back:
What hasn’t gone well?
While most of his underlying stats have matched (or exceeded) his best form in years prior, two haven’t: dribbling success rate, and shot accuracy.
Dribbling is one of the analytics with the widest variance across services. But in all his appearances so far, fb-ref (Opta) has him at 10 out of 33 in attempted dribbles, or 30.3%. Wyscout has him a little better, but still at a lower percentage than last year.
That’s a limited sample, but tracks with the eye test. When playing left-wing, he can be guilty of trying to get to the goal from too far out.
Against PSV, he kicked off attacks too early. Here, he unsuccessfully tried to nutmeg his defender—who was in good position to intercept—rather than delivering it down the line to Martinelli, or back to Tierney.
While his positioning has improved, he’s still working on the nuances of accepting the ball deeper. When accepting on the half-turn, he can try to bounce his first touch around the defender so he can sprint by, instead of keeping it in tidy control. It’s the kind of thing that works well against lesser opponents, but not so much against the top tier.
With his back to the net, he can get caught between running towards the ball to accept it, and trying to box out the defender. When this happened against PSV, the defender could usually get around him or over his back:
That was indicative of a really tough game in a 2-0 loss, winning only 3 of 23 duels across the pitch, with very few due to lack of effort. He was overambitious with most of his first touches, a little sloppy overall, and lunging into every loose ball:
Which brings us to his shooting. Because he’s been more active, he’s also created more opportunities. He’s tallied more shots, closer shots, more xG, and more touches in the box. But his shooting percentage has dipped, putting about 36% of shots on target.
Watching the tape of all his shots on the year, I’m not sure they warrant sweeping conclusions. The sample size isn’t huge (~30 shots), and he’s hit 11 on goal:
On replay, it’s hard to find fault with the decision-making or even technique in most cases. He’s just had some narrow misses and good saves. There were a couple where he could have hit it on his first touch instead of gathering, or placed it a little better, but by and large, he’s been pretty decisive.
It feels like common variance to me.
🔥 In conclusion🔥
After going through this exercise, I believe the foundational elements of Nketiah’s game have improved slightly. He’s been impatient here and there, but overall, he looks to have added strength, flexibility, and more confidence to his baseline. While I see little reason to believe his dip in goals is tied to a larger issue with form or technique (and is more likely due to simple variance), goals are still better than no goals. You heard it here first.
Regardless, he still has areas to improve—including feeling out the right move when accepting the ball in hold-up play. He already showed improvement on this against Lyon. I believe him to be a striker in his bones, and don’t think his abilities play nearly as well on the wing, where his goal-hawking can lead to him wanting to bypass progressive sequences. I personally hope a January signing puts an end to that.
As a striker, there are some areas in which he could offer a different dimension than Jesus. He can be more likely to finish from further distances, and has been deadly on poacher-style deflections and rebounds. Numbers don’t necessarily bear this out, but I also believe him to have a higher ceiling on set-piece headers than Jesus. Moreover, looking over all his career goals to date, it’s striking (get it, striking) how many of his goals are of the opportunistic variety: hounding defenders and keepers into embarrassing mistakes. I’d expect to see one of those in the coming months.
Jesus’ impact can not be overstated. Just as his work has reverberated throughout the pitch, replacing him is the job of those across the pitch, too. It isn’t just on Eddie: it’ll require a team-wide effort.
As we covered earlier, it comes down to two questions. First, can the team as a whole work to minimize some of the difference in progression and disruption with Jesus off the pitch? Second, can Nketiah seize the moment, and finish with higher efficiency to offset the quality of Jesus elsewhere?
It’s a tall order, but so far, Arteta’s squad has been up to those this year.
Happy grilling everybody.