Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi Is A Ticking Time Bomb

Arsenal have a vast collection of youngsters but none of them appear quite as ready as Alex Iwobi. The young Nigerian is ticking down until he explodes into significance.

I must admit, I am guilty of not giving Alex Iwobi the credit he deserves. I am so enamored with the likes of Donyell Malen, Krystian Bielik and Jeff Reine-Adelaide that the 19 year old sitting on the Arsenal bench continues to elude more significant notice.

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But to a certain extent, it is easy to see why. Whereas the 16-18 year old wonderkids are doing fancy tricks and scoring insane goals in the U21 side, Alex Iwobi is just biding his time. He comes and goes in the U21 side, moving up and down between youth squad and senior.

While loanees like Jon Toral blasts in goals from distance, Chuba Akpom nets hat tricks and Gedion Zelalem takes Scotland by storm, Iwobi trains behind the scenes and sits and waits.

And yet, everyone is eager with the anticipation of what Iwobi brings to the side. And by everyone, I quite literally mean everyone. Arsene Wenger is just the latest to sing the young Nigerian’s praises.

Iwobi has been rotating between the U21s and Arsenal’s senior squad bench all season. Which brings me to another reason why he has had so few opportunities to impress. He is caught in that limbo between being a prospect and breaking into the first team.

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He and Serge Gnabry are both there. The two have made impressive appearances for the first team but that was mostly as fill-ins. There was never actually a spot for them. So now they wait.

In the meantime, Alex Iwobi made a brilliant decision in choosing Nigeria over England. By doing so, he is setting himself up to become a major contributor at the international level, as well as a leader, at a very young age. The successes of this endeavor will reverberate into the Premier League.

But that success may come before he sticks in the starting XI. Iwobi has gobs of potential. He is a big, strong winger with the ability to drive right at the defense. We have seen him do such things, mainly against Burnley and we even saw him score a rather impressive goal in the preseason.

All this adds up to is that Alex Iwobi is like a ticking time bomb. With each brief appearance for Arsenal, Iwobi is going to see how crucial each opportunity is and before long, we are going to see a marvelous effort in which he proclaims his merit to be a member of the first team.

Arsene Wenger has saved Iwobi a spot, that’s for sure. The young Nigerian can play left wing or attacking mid. Currently, Arsenal’s two superstars, Alexis and Ozil hold down those two roles, respectively. But they are all Arsenal have in those two roles. So when they need a breather or when a lesser competition pokes in, Iwobi will be ready.

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Then, all he has to do is explode onto the pitch.