Arsenal: Gabriel Martinelli is our very own Luke Skywalker

Arsenal need a new hope, and in the spirit of Star Wars, let’s just call Gabriel Martinell what he is: our very own Luke Skywalker.

When things are at their darkest, sometimes the best thing you can do is find hope in the smallest of things. Things are pretty dark for Arsenal right now, even if hope comes in the form of Mikel Arteta. That hope, however, is brittle, because we’ve now seen three managers undone by the state of this club and its players.

From Arsene Wenger to Unai Emery to Freddie Ljungberg, no one has been able to corral the gradual deterioration, across the board. But it’s the attack that is most troubling. When you have Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette on the same team, you really shouldn’t be struggling to score goals.

We need a New Hope, the same way the Rebel Alliance needed that new hope against the reign of the Galactic Empire. Leave it to our dear club to have the empire within themselves.

That new hope is easy enough to see, though. It’s Gabriel Martinelli. And if you want to see why in a microcosm, watch the Everton match again (if you dare).

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Ljungberg went with the kids. Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe, Bukayo Saka and Martinelli were all out there, but who was it that gave us the hope we needeD? Martinelli. That’s no fluke. And this isn’t the first time either.

No one else has looked more prepared, more enthusiastic, and more capable in our time of trouble than Gabriel Martinelli, the young Brazilian wonder. Not only is he our second highest goal scorer across all competitions, behind just Aubameyang (and not by much) but he’s our most consistent goal producer too. Fancy that.

Now that Martinelli is in the starting XI, there’s nothing else in his way. Let me rephrase that—there’s nobody else in his way. It’s incredibly what he’s been able to prove in just half a season, but I can’t imagine that Mikel Arteta is going to be that determined to dispose of him or replace him. Not when he’s such a big part of the present and the future.

With so many exciting youth talents on the team, it’s not easy to stand out and prove to be the one, but Martinelli has done exactly that. He’s the most exciting young player on this team. Perhaps even eliminate the ‘young’ in the previous sentence.