Arsenal: The least we can give Reiss Nelson is a chance

Arsenal need help on the wings this summer, but trusting Reiss Nelso is the least we can do to help both parties with their problems.

No matter how you look at it, Arsenal need a real team effort to fix all the missing pieces on the team this summer. They can’t just buy all of their solutions, the money just isn’t there. They are going to need youth to step up and fill in the rest of the missing pieces that the money can’t afford.

Defense has so many youth options that one good signing there should do the trick. The same goes for the midfield. But on the wings, it’s a different story.

With Henrikh Mkhitaryan likely to depart and Mesut Ozil potentially ready to follow, the Gunners have just as many winger options as they did at the start of this season – zero. Alex Iwobi, if you’re being rather liberal with the use of the word “winger.”

Speaking of things money can’t buy – a complete solution to the winger void? Not affordable. And that’s a problem.

Reiss Nelson, meanwhile, is a winger. And after maturing over an up-and-down year at Hoffenheim, he will be pining for a chance at Arsenal. He almost eked out a more regular role in the first team before being sent out on loan, but the move seems to be his last step between prospect and being a first-teamer.

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But that’s going to require an opportunity to be given. And that involves a risk.

I loved the idea of letting Nelson take one winger role and buying a winger for the other side. Saves a lot of money that way.

Of course, that was when Nelson was smacking home goals for Hoffenheim and jumping out into the top scoring charts of the Bundesliga.

He has since calmed down, but that might actually be doing him a favor, if for no other reason than it doused the hype fire a bit, and could allow us to wrap our heads around the reality of Nelson’s future. That maybe he won’t knock home gobs of goals right off the bat, but with how much he has matured, maybe he can be the man we need him to be next year – just a sturdy, reliable presence on the first team.

It all starts with an opportunity. Once you give him that, you can have no questions what might have happened.