Arsenal: Alex Iwobi’s career can be built on Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Arsenal will most likely allow Henrikh Mkhitaryan to push Alex Iwobi out of his starting role, but for the young Nigerian, this could be his last obstacle.

There is no Arsenal player that I have been harder on this year than Alex Iwobi. The young Nigerian has just not lived up to his potential for yet another season and, given how high the ceiling looked when he first broke through, that is a bit disappointing.

His lack of effectiveness will now likely be set aside for the likes of Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who Arsenal acquired as their replacement for Alexis Sanchez. Mkhitaryan has the makings of a world class creative attacker that isn’t going to be so vastly disturbed when the confidence isn’t there. He’s been around the block and back, he’s a professional, he will handle it just fine.

Mkhitaryan figures to partner with Mesut Ozil in the creative attacking hub, which will probably carry over into the Carabao Cup final and the latter stages of the Europa League as well, giving Alex Iwobi what appears to be a rather bleak close to a rather bleak season. He was given every opportunity and – there’s no way to butter it up – he failed.

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That’s not the end of the story, though. He is just 21 and has so much more to tell. In fact, being ousted by Mkhitaryan could be the very thing that builds his career and pushes him to heights we had only hoped for in the past.

You have to imagine that Iwobi is more than a bit disappointed that he will now have to work his way back into a starting XI that will soon also boast the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. That’s no easy task.

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For as disappointed as everyone else is that he can’t seem to overcome his lapses in confidence, Iwobi himself has to be ten times more so. In the early days, you brush it off as part of the process, but here he is, two years into his professional career, and the hopes of a young phenom have kind of evaporated.

It’s not getting into panic time, but it’s getting into a time where he really needs to find a foundation and figure out what he is going to be and, given how this roster is shaping up, he is going to have plenty of time to do that.

You’d think that there is another year or two before Ozil or Mkhitaryan makes way, barring any injuries, and opens up a potential gap for Iwobi to slide into. He will also have side competitions during that time. All the while he will have to see that the old days, of being grandfathered into the XI, those days are gone.

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By time he turns 23, 24 years old, he will have to prove that he is different than he was before. Easier said than done, but thanks to being blocked by Mkhitaryan and likely Aubameyang as well, it’s prime time to do some self-discovery.