Arsenal: Reiss Nelson so easy that it seems too easy

Arsenal have something special in Reiss Nelson, and it’s being proven in so many ways. But is it almost shaping up to be too easy?

From the moment Reiss Nelson broke into the Arsenal first team spectrum, there was a ton of buzz. He’d been at the club for quite some time already and fans saw him as the next young superstar to make his way through the academy.

But we’d been there before. Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Jon Toral, Daniel Crowley, Chuba Akpom, all young phenoms that were supposed to be the next big thing and never panned out. Nelson gave fresh hope in something we so often believed in but so rarely saw.

He hit the first team, made headway, and started to prove himself as a viable option, but there were those question marks surrounding him – he played pretty recklessly, for instance, in his attacking approach.

So he went out on loan, right as the club needed a winger more than anything, and no wingers were signed to replace him, or fill the massive void that was already there.

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A loan to Hoffenheim, in a league where young players seem to take precedent and English talent is starting to find a stage to grow. It all made perfect sense, and it is what should have happened with Serge Gnabry all those years ago.

And Nelson compounded on the excitement already buzzing about him by propelling himself to near top of the Bundesliga scoring charts. He was scoring every time he took to the pitch, and he wasn’t even seeing that many minutes.

On came Hoffenheim manager Julian Nagelsmann to tell us to stop hyping Nelson so much, to let him develop in peace. But how could we, as fans, do that when he was proving to be so much more than all the other “wonderkids” we have gotten far too excited about? He was actually excelling in a top-level competition.

Now, here comes Reiss Nelson himself to remind us what this was all about, telling us that he left Arsenal as a boy and is returning as a man.

And would you look at that? We need a winger more now than we did in the summer. Everything is paved for Nelson. This is a golden pathway if ever there was one.

Which is where my only misgiving comes into play – this is way too easy right? Nelson couldn’t possibly just stroll into the first team and be a clear solution, could he?