Arsenal: Alex Iwobi has key upper hand over Ozil, Mkhitaryan

Arsenal’s new era is leaving some people behind, but the young players may be in the best position to start afresh, and that includes Alex Iwobi.

Arsenal‘s creative attack has a lot of pieces, most of which are pre-established superstars that have their own set skills that they’ve been utilizing for years in whatever system they happen to find themselves in.

It’s just four games into the season and I always feel the need to point out that nothing that has happened in four games is conclusive enough to draw any absolutes on. But as I also point out, it doesn’t mean we can’t start making early assessments regarding the state of the club and who looks to be a part of the future and, well, who doesn’t.

Thus far into the season, aside from the defense, the weakest point has come from what was meant to be one of our biggest strengths – the creative attacking midfielders. Aaron Ramsey has been fantastic, as can be expected.

But Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan have not been good. Mkhitaryan has been got for all of twenty minutes. Ozil has been good for at least a handful of minutes. I think. Maybe not at all, it’s hard to say. And I’m not just being pessimistic.

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Alex Iwobi, meanwhile, has been given a great shot to assert himself and has taken it as well as can be expected. At no point have I thought that he was a liability. At no point have I wished him off the pitch. If anything, I like he should have been left on for longer.

I still don’t trust Iwobi more than the other two. That is going to take a long time for me to commit too. But I do think there is one key area that Iwobi has an upper hand in, and that’s that he is far more malleable than either Mkhitaryan or Ozil.

We have spent months discussing how Ozil could possibly fit into Umai Emery’s schematics and thus far, he can’t. Mkhitaryan looked to be more capable of doing so, but it’s still a work in progress. Both of these guys have been around the block, and possess far less capacity for change.

Iwobi is different. He is desperate for direction and if Emery can give him that, then he can become what we want him to become. He has a wide open capability to change himself to fit the current era and that’s something the other two can’t say.