Arsenal: Jeff Reine-Adelaide May Think He Is Paul Pogba

Arsenal ran out some youngsters against Sutton United as they cruised to a 2-0 victory over Sutton United and Jeff Reine-Adelaide was one. Or was it Paul Pogba?

Arsenal didn’t have to bring out the emergency armaments to knock Sutton United out of their Cinderella FA Cup run. They managed to cruise to a fairly easy 2-0 win with an amalgamation of youngsters and veterans.

Related: 5 Things We Learned Against Sutton United

Right in the middle of all of it was the young French teenager Jeff Reine-Adelaide, who was holding down the No. 10 spot that many had though would be his future position. He has since played mostly out wide in his brief cameos in this, his first season with the senior team.

As such, it was exciting to see him out there in the center of all of it, trying to make a name for himself in the first team. There was a ton of hype around this young man when Wenger signed him from Lens as a 17 year old and it felt like just a matter of time before he became the next big thing.

Seeing him out there against Sutton, it felt like he thought he already was the next big thing. And that is good and bad. His confidence has been his main source of hype. Even Wenger mentioned that, when he saw him as a 17 year old, that he did not play like a 17 year old should.

He was so confident.

But against Sutton, it felt almost like too much confidence. So much so that he is starting to remind me of Paul Pogba. Which, again, is good and bad.

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Paul Pogba is obviously in a different league and got started at a much younger age. But the blueprints are the same. Pogba exudes confidence almost to a fault. When he first came over to Manchester United, those faults were plain to see. Even when things weren’t going right, he was still trying flips and tricks in an attempt to rectify the situation.

Make no mistake about it, Jeff Reine-Adelaide did not have a good match against Sutton. He was dispossessed seven times.

But that’s okay, he’s young and they played tough and inspired. The problem was that, even when it wasn’t going right, Reine-Adelaide didn’t cut out the cute attempts at cleverness. He kept doing it and it came back to bite him more than once.

There comes a time when you need to just accept that you aren’t having the best time out there and get back to the basics and neither Pogba nor Reine-Adelaide seem to have that.

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On the bright side, there were a few times (very few) when it did come off for Reine-Adelaide. And while it didn’t make up for a terrible performance overall, it did remind us of what we already knew. That this lad is incredibly talented and has a huge future ahead of him in North London.