Arsenal: Zaha, Fraser, Ziyech have nothing to do with Reiss Nelson

Arsenal have to walk a fine line between purchasing an ample number of players and leaving room for youth. But Reiss Nelson always has a place.

There are a lot of names being tossed about in the Arsenal transfer rumor mill and all of them have one thing in common. Wilfried Zaha, Ryan Fraser, Hakim Ziyech, Ismaila Sarr, Leandro Trossard and more, and they are literally all wingers or creative attackers.

Which has many asking what the future holds for Reiss Nelson, who spent the year trying to establish himself at Hoffenheim so that he could have a place for him when he gets back to North London.

However, even if Arsenal were to buy the majority of those four guys above, Reiss Nelson will still have a place.

Look at this defense, for instance. It’s a different scenario entirely. We have so many bodies back there, but none that we really rely on, other than Laurent Koscielny.

There are all manner of options and Unai Emery was great about trying to work different combinations to see if he couldn’t elicit a response and get a combination that worked.

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The thing about the wings is that we have no one there currently. None. It’s completely vacated. So to worry that the addition of Fraser and Trossard and Ziyech could block Nelson is like thinking that the presence of Koscielny and Sokratis and Mustafi and Monreal would have blocked Rob Holding.

It wouldn’t have. There are so many opportunities, both in the Premier League and in the numerous midweek competitions, and Unai Emery has been so good about trying different things, from youth to veterans.

Nelson has a place on this team come next season, and we are going to see plenty of him, assuming we don’t dump him in some foolish effort to land Wilfried Zaha. What we have to remember is that we are still in the experimental stages of the Emery era. We should see progress, yes, but he is still going to be exercising a lot of options to see if he can uncover what players will work and which won’t.

Which is to say that even if Nelson isn’t given the red carpet to a start job, he will have every opportunity to take it. Even if we get Ziyech and Fraser and start with them, that still leaves Trossard and Nelson or Iwobi and Nelson or (insert winger name here) and Nelson to make an impact outside of the opening day starting XI.

There is so much room for that, and this is the exact place to be for it.