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Arsenal: Alex Iwobi Can Fast Forward Prodigal Son Parable
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal has a truly gifted young man in Alex Iwobi, but he has tumbled out of favor. Time to revisit the parable of the prodigal son.
It was in writing about this upcoming Southampton match that I realized how harsh I have been on Alex Iwobi. The young Arsenal man is immensely talented, but these past couple matches he has been having some serious fits. Nothing has come off and it’s led to him looking nothing short of foolish.
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Against Southampton, he will have a premium opportunity to repair upon that image and try to reforge himself as then surrogate prodigal son of Arsene Wenger.
The parable of the prodigal son goes something like, there is this one son who strays from his family, yet no matter what he does wrong, he can return and be loved more than ever, almost as if nothing ever went wrong.
Sounds like Alex Iwobi.
For the life of me, I still don’t know how the young Nigerian leapfrogged literally everyone into the starting role last season but hey, it worked. At least initially. Then, this season began with him taking the Premier League lead in assists.
Like, wow. This dude was good.
Then it started going bad. He looked a liability at times and the more chances he missed, the worse his misses seemed to get. It was a snowball effect and it finally led to him getting sat down by Wenger to watch a few matches.
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Iwobi has strayed from the family. But if he can come in against Southampton and remind us of why he claimed that starting role in the first place, I would not be surprised to see him “forgiven” on the spot and returned to a prominent place in the starting XI.
It’s pretty clear that Iwobi is a favorite of Wenger, so it just makes sense. For Le Prof especially, guys that play his way will always be favored over guys who play their own way (ahem… Joel Campbell).
Iwobi will likely be given a central role, which I think will benefit him more than we think. Out wide, he had an obligation to attack the goal and make himself a threat in the box. It didn’t really work. I still feel that the closer that Iwobi gets to the goal, the less reliable he becomes.
At the No. 10 role, as Ozil has shown, you don’t need to pressure the goal. Simply pick out the lanes and be in good positions.
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Iwobi can do that.