Arsenal: Chris Willock The Dark Horse In Race To Be “Next Big Thing”

Arsenal has a bunch of young prospects to keep an eye on, but Chris Willock may have sprung into the lead as the most exciting of the bunch.

Every year, Pain in the Arsenal does a top 10 prospect list to kick off the season. These top 10 prospects are the ten we are most excited to see in the future. In the past two years, Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Donyell Malen have been swapping off at the top spot. Behind them comes Krystian Bielik, Gedion Zelalem and the like.

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Chris Willock was only No. 10 on that top 10 list before the season started, but that may be changing incredibly fast. The 19-year old Englishman has rocketed to the top of the charts and may well have overtaken the competition as the most likely “next big thing.”

This comes on the heels of Willock scoring another two goals for the England U-19s as they thumped Belarus 5-1 in World Cup qualifiers.

Willock is a true winger, something that Wenger has come to shirk lately, choosing instead to force central midfielders out wide, or let his overabundance at striker fill out the wide positions.

But Willock would be a welcome reversion back to having an actual winger, like Theo Walcott was supposed to be. The primary difference being that Willock is a creator, whereas Walcott is a poacher.

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Willock has had himself a year so far in the Arsenal youth set up. With the U23 side, he has only bagged three goals, but he has created seven for his team mates, and that is the number I am most focused on.

Arsenal’s attack has become too one-dimensional lately, and that comes down to the need for everything to go through Mesut Ozil. The threats out wide just aren’t threats anymore, as Walcott can’t create for himself and Alexis and the Ox push central.

The majority of width is coming from the fullbacks, while the majority of the creating is coming from central positions, if at all.

Willock changes that, as he is creative from wide angles.

While Reine-Adelaide and Donyell Malen still rank in as the two most exciting in the system, both play roles that we are seeing a ton of lately. Malen has had to watch as four different Arsenal strikers vie for one position and Jeff Reine-Adelaide has a boatload of central midfielders ahead of him.

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But Willock doesn’t have a lot of similar senior-level players to look to and compete with. And that is just another contributing factor to why he has shot up the awareness charts.