Arsenal: Mohamed Elneny Turning Jekyll And Hyde

Arsenal employed a makeshift starting XI against Crystal Palace and it included Mohamed Elneny. The jury is still out on the Egyptian as he struggles for identity.

Arsenal‘s depth is being put to the test and Arsene Wenger got to it early, rotating the squad quite a bit against Crystal Palace in preparation for the match two days later against Bournemouth. The lineup included the likes of Lucas and Mohamed Elneny and yet it still worked to perfection.

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Mohamed Elneny, in particular, was on point. The stats didn’t necessarily come off, as he didn’t tally anything out of the ordinary, but the performance was, visibly, so much better than what I was used to seeing from Elneny.

For starters, he looked faster. Call me crazy – I’m calling myself it – but I have seen Elneny hustle and look like he had ankle weights on. Against Palace though, he looked faster, and maybe it was just that Palace were a slower team, but they really weren’t. They were plenty active and pacey.

Elneny always has the effort. Always. He is busting his arse all over the pitch, just like Alexis Sanchez does (only slower). But it just looked different and felt different this time around. His shots were caught better, his passing was better. He got forward much better, making his offensive abilities actually pop.

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It’s like Jekyll and Hyde. Like Elneny has two separate personas. Which is cool, honestly, because anyone who has read my stuff on Elneny before can attest to, I wasn’t convinced that he had much to grow into. He was a well-rounded and solid midfielder who could fill in at most positions, but he didn’t have anything that was a specific focal point of his ensemble.

That has it’s pros and cons, obviously, as he always had use as a utility man, but in terms of growth potential, there wasn’t much upside.

And then Crystal Palace happened and we saw an Elneny that I had not seen before. He was doing Ramsey-like things, popping up in goal scoring situations, he was pushing the ball forward and overall, it showed that he may not be such a perfectly-rounded specimen after all. Maybe he does have some upside in areas such as attack and link-up.

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It’s always good news to see glimpses of star-forming ability from a midfielder, as more options can help prevent such situations as we have seen (with Xhaka and Elneny, ironically) where there is simply no offensive push in the midfield.