Arsenal’s Gabriel Martinelli has a new and dangerous weapon

It’s not often that your side loses 2-0 at home against a side of Liverpool’s quality and you leave the pitch as the best player on the night. Gabriel Martinelli’s performance for Arsenal deserves all the attention it is receiving.

Emile Smith Rowe is the club’s top scorer and someone with the world at his feet. This young man is going to be a regular fixture with his international side and keep raising his level each and every season. What he won’t do, however, is start in this team. Not right now. He can’t.

Martinelli is everything supporters hoped he’d be and more. The love for him doesn’t end, just as the hype around him is justified.

Those who’ve been witness to his potential from the first few games of his Arsenal career are seeing that grace the Emirates Stadium turf in even more devastating fashion than previously. Across this season he’s found ways to harness his chaotic nature into well-rounded performances, which Mikel Arteta aptly labelled as him ‘finding gears’ in his play.

Arsenal 0-2 Liverpool: Gabriel Martinelli has a new and dangerous weapon as he’s improved his already exceptional dribbling ability

Frighteningly quick with and without the ball, the disrespectful energy levels he has, whether that be closing the ball down in front or tracking back to defend, are byproducts of his glowing enthusiasm and determination.

When it comes to goal threat his direct style is always threatening. He now penetrates the box with measured application, picking and choosing his moments with more clarity.

There has always been one noticeable area of his game that had yet to be unlocked, however. The intent of his first touch is so positive that it goes beyond cushioning the ball expertly, with the natural instinct to set it up for the direction he aims to attack. Being able to control a pass dropping 60 yards in the air or fizzed into his feet is elite technical security, but to have the presence of mind to place it where he wants, either to spring him into action or buy him time to calculate, is at an exceptional level.

What he does after that has needed some fine-tuning. An abrasive running style goes hand-in-hand with his dribbling. Kick and run would be one way to describe it – despite being a grossly unjust description – and while he’s always had the capacity, he’s now starting to harness his raw talent into effective and dynamic dribbling.

There is variation. There is crispness. Trent Alexander-Arnold had a torrid evening despite being on the winning side, with Martinelli twisting him inside and outside, constantly altering his point of attack and making spellbinding runs around the full-back as well as inside.

A passage of play in the second have where he skinned more people than Leatherface would have been one of the all-time great Premier League assists. Nutmegs and captivating quick feet saw him dance beyond multiple defenders before threading a pass into the box where there was no recipient.

Unpredictability in his play was always there, it was about matching the intent with the right application. The dribbling he learned in the cages of Sao Paulo is being refined on matchdays, with no more fitting example of that than in the defeat to Liverpool.

It’s easy to forget how young he is, as is the case with so many players in this team. At just 20 years old he can be whatever he wants to be. In this modern game it is now the wide forwards who are becoming the main sources of goals and he has all the tools to be one of the most devastating on the planet moving forward.

Jurgen Klopp doesn’t lavish opposition players with praise unprompted, let alone on three separate occasions. This performance is one that will awaken the world to his talent. His recent and maiden call-up to the Brazil national squad won’t be his last.