Arsenal: 4 far too early takeaways from pre-season

4. Albert Sambi Lokonga is Going to Be Incredible

If you think we’re going to get carried away with Albert Sambi Lokonga’s 45-minute outing against a mid-table Championship team in a behind-closed-doors friendly when Arsenal were already leading 1-0…then you are absolutely correct.

We won’t, honestly. Ish.

But we will begin hypothesising about what he can bring to this team. Sambi’s qualities are already known, it was just pleasant to see them in practice in what was, in all honesty, pretty much a practice match.

Lining up with Thomas Partey, the decision to take Elneny off at half-time instead of the Ghanaian hints (sort of but not really) at what could come next season. Arsenal still haven’t signed a central midfielder to be starting week in week out, which they absolutely must do, but Sambi will get more minutes than most expect.

As a ball-playing No. 6, there is no reason that Elneny should be ahead of him in the pecking order once he gets up to speed. While patience is needed on that front, all the hype around him comes from people to trust and given how light Arsenal are in that department with more exits to be sanctioned, there are minutes there to be had.

No starts against Brentford and Chelsea, of course.

How much more overboard can we go from 45 minutes against Millwall? Let’s try: he’s more progressive than Elneny, more composed than Matteo Guendouzi, more robust than Lucas Torreira and more economical on the ball than Dani Ceballos.

Yeah, that’ll do. All aboard the premature hype train!

(but seriously we absolutely need to be patient with him)