Why Eddie Nketiah was never good enough for Arsenal

Eddie Nketiah completed a deadline day transfer to Crystal Palace for a reported £30m fee, bringing an end to his nine year spell at Arsenal.

The striker made his first team debut in 2017 and received an official promotion ahead of the 2019/20 season. He became a regular in the squad following a failed loan spell at Leeds United in the first half of that campaign.

Despite being given a long-term contract and the iconic number 14 shirt in 2022, Nketiah could never find good and consistent form during his time with the Gunners.

Many fans were confident that Nketiah would make it at Arsenal but he was simply never good enough for the club and this is why.

Why Eddie Nketiah was never good enough for Arsenal

Nketiah scored 38 goals in 168 first team appearances for Arsenal, one stat that already stands out as not particularly good enough for a striker playing for a big club.

He was not always given regular game time by Mikel Arteta but when he was, he rarely made the most of it. Nketiah had good runs of form, notoriously towards the end of the 2021/22 season and the winter period of the 2022/23 campaign but could never replicate these purple patches at other points of his Gunners career.

Nketiah is one of just two Arsenal players to net a hat-trick in this decade, having scored a treble in a 5-0 home win over Sheffield United last season. The other was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang against Leeds United in February 2021.

His good form had fans chanting "your defence is in trouble, Nketiah in the room" but opposition defenders did not have to fret at the sight of the one-cap England international too often. Despite his impressive runs of form, he could never find goalscoring consistency, demonstrated by him failing to ever net more than five Premier League goals in a season.

When performing at his best, Nketiah looked like one of the deadliest strikers in the Premier League but he more often seemed like a forward bereft of goalscoring knowledge. Some will argue this was due to a lack of consistent chances but Arteta did hand him plenty of opportunities, he just failed to take them.

It could also be argued that his poor consistency was due to him struggling to cope with the pressure of leading the line for the Gunners in big moments, such as the previous two title races. Even still, a striker playing at the top level should be able to handle this to a good extent and score goals on a regular basis.

There is no doubt Eddie Nketiah is an extremely talented footballer and deadly goalscorer but he just never seemed to be good enough to make it at a big club like Arsenal. His poor consistency and perhaps lack of confidence prevented him from ever developing himself into a top Premier League striker.

His move to Crystal Palace should help him achieve this as he is likely to receive regular game time, thus building the consistency and confidence he requires.

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