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Reiss Nelson ran the Arsenal show against Portsmouth, and for the first time in his North London career, he looked all grown up and ready for first-team life.
After getting bounced against Olympiakos, Arsenal‘s match against Portsmouth took on a much different tilt. With youth aplenty, the Gunners absolutely had to put in a confident, conclusive effort if they were going to get bounced from two competitions in less than a week.
Not the spot you want to be in when you’re fighting for a Champions League berth. Confidence is key towards the end, and Mikel Arteta swapped in the kids for the fixture. Of course, I say ‘the kids’ but for this one, I don’t think that includes Reiss Nelson.
Nelson was pretty damn incredible. Not only did he get both assists on both goals, but he lead the team by a longshot in creating four chances—more than any three other players combined. No big deal.
Perhaps the best part was how composed he was. On the ball, he was unflappable. He was not dispossessed a single time and he only took two poor touches.
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Compare that to Joe Willock, who took six poor touches; Eddie Nketiah, who was dispossessed thrice and took four poor touches; and Bukayo Saka, who was dispossessed once and took four poor touches. Even Gabriel Martinelli, who was level on poor touches, got dispossessed once.
The best part was that all of them were really good. Really, really good. This was a powerful attack that had a lot of good opportunities.
It just so happened that Reiss Nelson was the font of most of those challenges though.
Really though, what Nelson did particularly well was not trying to do too much. He was a composed presence. He did his job and didn’t try to change the world with every touch. It was a wholesome performance that exuded maturity and confidence. In short, he didn’t make the kind of youthful mistakes we still often see out of Willock. That’s a big deal.
Arteta may have left David Luiz and Sokratis out there to be a veteran presence, but Nelson was the veteran presence on this attack. When we needed something done, he was the guy to do it.
I get that it is only Portsmouth, but as I’ve said before, maturity isn’t something that you just lose between competitions. If this is who Nelson is (and we do need to verify that), then he’s finally come around.