Arteta’s bizarre Arsenal adoration hints at selections

If Arteta Wants Nketiah to Stay, Why Isn’t He Playing Him?

Arteta is on a one man mission to tie Nketiah down to a long-term contract. The most recent rejection was largely blanketed as an attempt to increase the fee Arsenal will receive from a tribunal should the striker depart for free at the end of his contract. Well, was it?

Given how outspoken Arteta is about the situation, any new deals presented to the 22-year-old lean far more towards the side of actually wanting him to stay. Not tribunal fees or value protection. Every time he’s asked about Alexandre Lacazette’s contractual position, which is exactly the same, the line is always about discussing it at the end of the season. In other words, he’s leaving.

So with his absolute adoration for Nketiah and desperation to make him stay, why is he not playing then? This is what makes the situation so peculiar. Last January when Arteta put a stop on a loan move, when there were no fit strikers other than Nketiah in the first leg against Villarreal, he chose Smith Rowe to play as a false nine. That doesn’t come across as someone who truly believes in the talent.

Nketiah is 22 years old now. There is obvious ability there, albeit widely considered not enough to take Arsenal up a gear, but if Arteta sees it why won’t he act on that?

https://twitter.com/footballdaily/status/1469325651194925059

It took until Old Trafford for him to make his first Premier League appearance of the season having featured on the bench just once before, and with the current crop of strikers not looking like scoring in a month of Sundays, what better time to give minutes to Nketiah than when the team needs someone to hit the back of the net?

Scoring against AFC Wimbledon and Leeds in the Carabao Cup, in both Premier League matches that followed those games Nketiah wasn’t included. That doesn’t sound much like Arteta fancies Nketiah as much as he says he does.

All of which hints towards the manager having one last throw of the dice. Regular minutes is what Nketiah is seeking a departure for, so could he get them from Arteta as soon as this weekend now Aubameyang is confirmed to be out? Getting in ahead of Pepe in the pecking order, and with Smith Rowe touch and go to feature, Arteta’s obsession to keep hold of a player he hadn’t even selected in the squad for ages seems to lean towards even more involvement.

It’s an incredibly bizarre scenario. Making it clear he wants to leave, Nketiah is now the subject of an out-of-the-blue promotion ahead of the player who turned down most of Europe in April to sign a long-term deal and be the next striker talent at the club. Balogun was effectively selected ahead of Nketiah. What will he think of all this?

Nketiah deserves a move where he can play, and all suggestions are he can be a success elsewhere. It’s just impossible to see him moving the needle at Arsenal and solving the team of their scoring issues, so how all of this is being handled by the manager comes as a head scratcher.

He must be seeing something truly special in training that supporters aren’t privy to. But it’s still not enough for more minutes, presumably.