Arsenal: For Reiss Nelson, the hard part is still in front of him

Reiss Nelso was supposed to have a pretty easy stroll into the Arsenal starting XI, but his obstacles are mounting and the toughest one is now in front of him.

When Reiss Nelson started his loan at Hoffenheim, I wasn’t alone in thinking that it was his final step before becoming an Arsenal regular. It wasn’t even a unanimous deal that saw him leave the club. Many wanted to see him stay and fight for his place. Even now, that might have worked out, looking back.

But Hoffenheim happened, he went through tremendous mental and physical growth, and he was pegged to be a starting winger as the season kicked off.

Obviously that took a bit of a step back when Nicolas Pepe arrived, but Pepe was one man, and he wasn’t going to fix that attack alone. He was an obstacle in Nelson’s path, but not a detrimental one. Nelson still had his own tremendous ability.

That was the easy obstacle. That was the kind of obstacle that you just need one good opportunity to get through. No big deal.

Then Bukayo Saka came along.

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Younger, faster, stronger, and arguably more dynamic of a player, Saka leap-frogged Nelson into the starting XI when Alexandre Lacazette went down and in the span of just a couple matches, may well have leap-frogged over Nicolas Pepe as well. Nelson has been making appearances coming on for Pepe, not Saka.

Which bodes worse for Nelson than if Pepe was in front of him. Because Nelson has several advantages over Pepe—he’s younger, he’s been at the club longer, so on and so forth. He doesn’t have those same kinds of advantages over Saka.

It’s not a bad situation for the club to be in, obviously. With Lacazette’s return, Nelson isn’t even in the picture to take a starting spot. He won’t be the first substitute either. Though no one is going to question his talent. Or at leas they shouldn’t.

The debate is between Pepe and Saka. And whoever among those two loses is going to be the first-choice sub coming off the bench, stepping in front of Nelson and bumping him back down the chain.

The hardest part for Nelson, though, is that Gabriel Martinelli is right behind him. And if you lose out to yet another player younger than you… well, then maybe it’s not such a good situation for him any more.