Having made every matchday squad this season, Ethan Nwaneri can now confidently describe himself as a part of Arsenal’s senior squad. The 17-year-old has 108 minutes and two goals in four games, which suggests how much promise he has.
The Gunners academy is still producing the next generation as Mikel Arteta establishes his dynasty, as evidenced by Nwaneri, following a summer in which academy players Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah were offloaded. On Saturday, Ismael Kabia and Myles Lewis-Skelly were also benched at Bournemouth.
With his club trailing by two goals and a player, Nwaneri played the final nine minutes of his longest Premier League tenure this season. He made 12 touches and finished all eight passes, doing the best he could.
In a match where Arsenal had little fun moving forward, the teenager also had time to be caught offside, but that was a sign of his attacking drive. He hasn’t started in the Premier League yet, and it’s improbable that he will against Liverpool the following week.
He has little chance of starting Tuesday’s Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk, but he might achieve a significant milestone. He deserves to debut in Europe, at the absolute least.
With Inter Milan up next, followed by a trip to Sporting Lisbon and a matchup at home against AS Monaco, who have gotten off to a fantastic start in Ligue 1 this season, it may be his only chance to play for extended periods in the Champions League for the remainder of 2024.
In January, Girona and Dinamo Zagreb present higher chances of getting into the Champions League. An appearance against Shakhtar is beckoning, as Nwaneri is an attacking midfielder and Martin Odegaard is currently recovering from a foot injury.
With Shakhtar providing the wit and physicality of European regulars, Arteta might initially prefer one of Leandro Trossard, Mikel Merino, or Kai Havertz to play in the attacking midfield position. However, Nwaneri is capable of causing chaos from the bench.
There is a feeling that exhaustion is a contributing role in Shakhtar’s failure to score in their first two Champions League games. Naturally, the Ukrainian team is competing for more than just table points.
Due to circumstances beyond their control, the team must travel more because many of the players’ families reside in nations other than Ukraine during the ongoing conflict with Russia. To visit his loved ones in Spain, Captain Taras Stepanenko must arrange a 12-hour flight.
At the same time, Germany is hosting European home games. More specifically, Gelsenkirchen. This terrible domestic situation unfairly affects a team that is already a huge underdog against Arsenal.
Football is a relatively small matter in comparison to the reality that the tourists are experiencing. When the conflict started in February 2022, Nwaneri was just 14 years old. The attacker will become an adult in four months and will have accumulated a wealth of experience by then.
He’ll be hoping for Champions League minutes as part of that. He might make an impression from the bench as he did against Leicester last month, and the game against Shakhtar seems like the most obvious introduction to Europe’s top competition for the reasons mentioned.
“The first one is an action like this, he runs past two or three players and wants to take a shot,” Arteta stated. “Nwaneri, 17, takes the ball.” I adore it; you must play with that bravery if you want to play here and be at that level.
Signs of promise, then. Arteta appears to have a straightforward choice to make this evening.