Chuba Akpom has been recalled from his loan spell at Coventry City with speculation mounting that the 18-year-old could compete for a first team place for the rest of the season.
The striker, who joined the Sky Blues back in February, garnered five starts during his time with the League One side and had been expected to complete the rest of the season under Steven Pressley’s stewardship.
In a slightly unsual deal Akpom had been allowed to play for the Gunners at youth level despite being on the books at Coventry and recently netted in both the UEFA Youth League and the FA Youth Cup. While he didn’t score during his time on loan his progress both tactically and physically is understood to have been noted by Arsene Wenger.
Interestingly, Coventry expressed concerns last week that Akpom was suffering from constantly chopping and changing between clubs.
“We fully respect Arsenal’s position but I don’t think it’s doing anyone any favours just now so it’s a situation we are going to have to look at,” said Pressley.
“He’ll be back for the weekend but I don’t think it’s helping him. He’s only 18 and it’s a big ask for him to come out and play, but it’s an even bigger ask when he is having to return there to a different culture and then return to us again. It’s just not ideal for the player and I think it’s affecting him.”
In pre-season the England under-19 international scored four goals for Arsenal on the tour of the Far East. He also spent January on loan at Brentford.
Chuba Akpom, Chuba Akpom, Chuba Akpooooom, pooom. (to the tune of Ricky Martin’s ‘Shake your Bon Bon’.
Yup. I’m here all day to class up the joint
who
haha i needed that. Hopefully it will put a smile on some of these bitter old men i have been trawling over the weekend.
chuba chuba chuba chuba chuba chuba chuba chuba AKPOM (to the tune of batman)
You are Welcome 😉
First time I’ve laughed since Saturday pre kick off. Cheer!
Good one!
will score the winning goal in the FA Cup final
if you jinx us I will pray that bergkamp smites you
If not, we’ll throw the Bergkamp statue at ’em.
Midwest Gooner, I’m based in Galesburg, Illinois. Was really disappointed to be coming to the US as I thought I wouldn’t be able to follow Arsenal as passionately as before but I’m glad that has not been the case
Michigan here, north of Lansing. Been in the state all my life but had the fortune to have a friend 20 years ago who grew up near N London.
Oh!….so that’s why Wenger didn’t buy a centre forward in January. He doesn’t want to ‘kill’ Akpom.
Lord help us.
Did someone say Lord?
I saw Chuba played against Barca in d UEFA game against Barcelona and my thought was: why won’t Arsene allow this guy the same oppurtunity like Gnabry. I don’t we have nothing to lose by giving h chance around the first team. Right now. I will take Akpom ahead of GSTEL
he did look excellent in the summer friendlies, perhaps he isn’t/wasn’t quite physically ready for the premiership.
the same with eisfeld maybe, they both look like real talents
#LANS
I don’t know how anyone can spin this in a positive way.
We’re supposed to be a top four team, aren’t we? Can you imagine a single one of our rivals recalling a player of Akpom’s age and experience in order to compete for first team football in the Premier League?
This comment has nothing to do with Akpom, who I’m sure has bags of potential, but if this is a stop-gap solution, it speaks volumes about the club’s ambition, and, perhaps, its ineptitude in January when we had £100m in the bank.
And if you are an amitious club, who would you buy in the January window? Who was available that suits your standards?
Akpom is very promising, he has to make it to the first team at some point, why not now? At least, try to see the positive in this.
and so, the war begins…. tht top spot ain goin away easy
Someone’s getting axed blud.
He could freshen things up a bit which can only be a good thing
Yes bring Chuba back and keep Bendtner away from the team. There’s more than enough taxis waiting to be erotically rubbed anyway.
Give him a chance upfront pls mr Wenger. He may prove to be better than Giroud or Sanogo 🙂
Hope Giroud gets dropped completely for a game soon. He’s been atrocious almost every game he starts. I know the Chelsea loss can’t be put down to one thing (especially the striker) when we conceded 6 goals, but everything he did in that game was woeful.
Honestly, I can’t see how Akpom/Sanogo could’ve performed worse.
I think the critisms of Giroud (and for the same reasons Ozil) have been harsh in recent weeks. He is a player whos stregths lie in bringing other in to play. With Walcott and Ramsey out our main attacking threats from midfield running in behind the back 4 are no longer available. You can critasize him for not turning and running at defenders, but he has never been that player and wont be any time soon. Giroud and Ozil arent players of individual brilliance but players who bring out the best of those around them. Our biggest problem isnt their… Read more »
Disagree about Giroud. His strength “used to be” bringing others into play. In recent weeks his hold up play has gone kaput. All he does is 1. Fall to ground at the slightest touch from the defender (Probably looking for the free-kick) 2. Horribly miscontrol the ball so that it gets turned over. Long balls forward ricochet left and right – straiht to the defender 3. Try a cute little flick left or right. It looks great when it comes off but 9/10 times it doesn’t and leads to breakdown of the attack. When you are bombarding the opposition with… Read more »
Criticism of Giroud is fair enough – Ozil’s is misplaced. Giroud is not good enough to play for Arsenal, he is an average striker at best. He is constantly wasteful in front of goal, and I’d like to highlight ‘constantly’ – People need to stop making excuses for him, he is flat out not good enough, nor does he have the technical ability to develop his game to get to where he needs to be. Ozil is world class / he used to play and dominate the midfield for Real Madrid in Spain and in Europe, he is one of… Read more »
7th in league for assists and 9th for goals scored. Yes he “used to” make assists and bring others into play, but who is fit and able to put away those chances now? He, as the focal point of our attack, is the scape goat for our entire attacking unit failing to achieve much in recent week. If he is isolated up front and no one is making runs in behind and trying to stretch the defence, what is he supposed to do? We get Ramsey back in a few weeks to play off him and all of a suddent… Read more »
I like Giroud, I think he is a good player but that’s all he is, we need a lot better at Arsenal, we need very good to world class and Giroud is not the answer, if he had scored at the start of the Chelsea game I think it would have changed our mentality as it would have gave us something to fight for. It has to be demoralizing when your striker cant hold the ball up or put away very presentable chances, I thought joel Campbell looked quite good against utd but we need to invest big in the… Read more »
The problem we have is Giroud is the plan A when he should be plan B. We are in desperate need of a world class striker. Giroud does have his qualities and deserves our support but he is no Ian Wright, Anelka, Henry, or Dutch Skunk.I doubt whether another striker would have had an impact on the City, Liverpool, and Chelsea games but realistically we might have managed two wins against united and picked up something from the stoke game. That’s another 7 – 9 points we could have added to our current total. As for supporting the team I… Read more »
They were awful on Saturday. They are going to try to rectify that on Tuesday.
So to help them out we should all boo them so that they know we were disappointed in them and think they’re rubbish?
Wipe yourself Sammy, you’re leaking shit
I strongly feel that Wenger had lost his faith in Giroud.. Sexscapade aside his form has gone from bad to worse the last couple of months.. Doesn’t the Giroud miss against Chelski in the opening minutes remind you of the Bendy one against Barca which led to us pretty much never seeing Bendy again?
No
Would be nice to have a homegrown striker break into the team. First since…Kevin Campbell?
Bendtner is homegrown mate.
It would be nice to have any real striker up front
@ least, I can’t predict how he will play unlike my tall handsome french striker. Trust me, Akpom can’t be worse than Giroud.
He’s actually better, he’s 18, fast, strong, and hungry.
Definitely worth a shot.
And until we get key men like Ramsey & Wilshere back.
The team should be
Back 5
Flam Arteta
Gnabry Santi Poldi
Akpom
And then when we get thrashed with that team in a match like against City or Everton you’ll call for Wenger’s head.
As opposed to the other thrashing we have received already?!?
Ox im guessing will be suspended when Gibbs’s red card is rescinded, so who else gives us pace on the wings apart from Gnabry?!
With Flamini & Arteta protecting the back 4 thats our 1st choice defensive midfield pairing.
If we get thrashed with those 2 playing we might as we’ll give up.
18 fast hungry…and also completely unproven.
I don’t understand the thinking here. How on earth could he be an improvement on Giroud? The chances of him being the ‘answer’ this season are slim at best, and yet on this forum I see several people claiming that he’s the business. Ridiculous, and utterly unfounded.
Let’s not forget that we’ve had previous. There are many young players who were hyped beyond their actual ability and didn’t work out. Jay-Emmanuel Thomas comes to mind. I remember people talking about him like he should replace Adebayor.
Did you not notice that we could barely get a decent pass through to Giroud? Our passing was sloppy and rushed every time we tried to get out of our own area. Chelsea had a plan to disrupt our play, based on exploiting the weakness in our playing style, and it worked. An early goal from Giroud wouldn’t have saved us as Chelsea were quickly into their groove and 6-1 would still have been a shellacking. Face it, we play a high line relying on keeping the ball, and winning it back quickly if we lose it, but only Rosicky… Read more »
Arsenal : Giroud, Bendtner, Sanogoals, Akpom….then think of our rivals forwards. We went into a season with that….Wenger had a chance to strengthen in January and didn’t. Unbelievable.
It’s believable if you understand that this isn’t Championship manager 1998 and it’s almost impossible to buy a quality striker in the January transfer window. Teams tend to want to hang onto their top talent and leading goalscorers. We’ve seen today that he tried to bring in Kalou as a stop-gap measure and short-term support for Giroud, but if he’d bought this calibre lots of fans would still have bemoaned his thriftiness and lack of ambition. Either way the only opportunity to buy someone worthy of being assisted by Ozil, Ramsey, Wilshere, and the others is in the summer.
There is still the accusation that we went into a season like that…..
It isn’t great.
like many aspects of the arsenal, transfer dealings have improved this season but are still not good enough. it has been said many times that when you pay the asking price, the selling club sells. too often we do not do that (and yes I know that football has gone crazy and prices are through the roof and sugar-daddy clubs have ruined it all for us honest folk…) and wind up with chairmen pulling the plug on deals or flat-out refusing to lower their asking price (suarez, draxler, mata, etc). How many more excuses are we going to make for… Read more »
I didn’t read your post other than “why didn’t we try to sign odemwingie”, so thanks for the laugh. Are you here all week?
Arsenal : Giroud, Bendtner, Sanogoals, Akpom….then think of our rivals bottomless coffers. We went into a season with that….Wenger had a chance to strengthen in January and didn’t because there were bugger all decent strikers available. Unbelievable.
I agree with Arseblood. We shouldn’t be resorting to an 18 year old,however good he is to rescue our season. Wenger should have paid the asking price for Higuain at the start of the season and not have made that stupid bid for Suarez.
Absolutely.
I find it strange the blind hope for Akpom here.
The real problem was our inability to land a striker this summer (and January). That’s the story. Not a kid we hope might suddenly rescue our season in the middle of it.
Yep, and we should never have given a 16 year old a chance in our midfield either. No way would that work out.
Bayern Munich , Chelsea,Liverpool man city man utd all have something in common giroud did nt score against any of these this season average striker , and lazy !!
What was the rest of the team doing at the time?
Maybe this re-call has nothing to do with the first team, maybe with all the “back and forth” Arsenal and Coventry just decided to cancel the loan.
Logic has no place here boy.
Indeed, playing both for Coventry and the U19 seems like a rather strange arrangement. He’s probably better off now that he avoids going back and forth all the time.
Sounds good to me. He has all it takes to flourish as a striker and he’s in the best club.
Good grief.
This is the problem with the club set up at the moment. Instead of these young boys coming though and getting eased into the first team with ten minutes here and there they are being thrown into the squad and expected to come on and be our saviour. It kills their progress. Wenger please stop this, in the summer go out and buy top class players that these young boys can learn from.
He hasn’t actually been thrown in the deep end yet. Maybe you could take a deep breath and wait until it actually happens before getting too uptight about it.
Let’s try him. Giroud has let us down.
We are letting Giroud down. If a team defends like shit how come the only person getting criticised is the lone striker?
Of all the people here, saying Akpom should play instead of Giroud and or Sanogo. How many of them will turn on the manager, if he doesn’t perform and misses some chances?????
More than anything else it highlights just how little faith the masses have in Giroud.
He’s a decent striker, but in all honesty he probably has less natural ability than Bendtner, and that says a lot.
I read on another forum a fellow gooner pleading for Sanogo to start ahead of Giroud against Chelsea, cos he knew Giroud wouldn’t do anything and Sanogo’s unpredictability as well as pace would be more effective against the Chelsea defence.
Most dismissed it as a ridiculous suggestion, but he was right, cos as usual Giroud went AWOL.
For him to have been right Sanogo would have had to have played and somehow single-handedly prevented us shipping six goals.
I can Understand the doubts towards Girous as he has never really been a top class striker. Played in french Ligue 2 until the age of 23 and then he had one good season for Montpellier where he netted 21 goals and became top scorer in a year where no strikers really delivered many goals. After all Podolski netted 19 goals for cologne whom was relegated. Ozil on the other hand has shown over several years he is one of the best players in the world. He has Perhaps been the best midfielder in the world 3 years in a… Read more »
Agreeing with almost everything you said except for the Giroud as backup striker. In fact, this is an opinion many Gooners have. Problem is Giroud is very much the definition on confidence player. Think about his initial few matches last season. I dont think he will be the kind of guy who gets to play once or twice a month and delivers on the given opportunity. If we are getting a better striker, sell Giroud and get a new backup.
SO true. It’s a complete gamble to send him out in the Prem League, and yet many here are advocating it. Can you imagine the backlash against Wenger and (sadly) Akpom should he not work out as planned? It’s stupidity to expect him to come in at this stage of the season, completely untried in the Prem, and perform. And yet, it appears this is exactly the sort of expectation some have of him here. Very simply, he is not better than Giroud, but I understand there is a massive backlash against Giroud right now, such that any name sounds… Read more »
Dear lord, why does he look like evra?
Hello Mr. Marriner.
Akpom akpom, Chuba akpom, scores goals like Henry and then goes nandos with frimpong.
Giroud can’t not take all the heat for what’s as happen he is still the best we have and looks in need off a rest play the pod there better finsher and rest for giroud put akpom about 70 mins see what he looks like or go 4 4 2 with pod playing off giroud till we have some players back
Play him vs Swansea.
Why not Sanogo? I’ve liked what I’ve seen of him, even if he does need some polishing.
start Sanogo put Akpom on the bench, Giroud out. Is what I imagine things will go like
A move that will send shockwaves thru the rest of the PL I’m sure. Although to be fair he’s probably got more pashun than TGSTEL and Ginola’s Wash and Go replacement put together.
Definitely wouldn’t slate Arsene for trying Akpom, regardless of the outcome.
At least I wouldn’t have to see Giroud look to the heavens and strike a pose after missing another goal. He seems to think everything is about what he looks like.
Duly noted Ben, will be carefully watching for your response if we lose against Swansea with Akpom up front.
More headache for Andre Marriner
Did anyone else hear about us trying to sign kalou at the end of January? That would have been worse than no signings or pre injured signings! Kalou is toilet!!!
Plus he says HE turned US down, how emarrasing
Either way Wenger could go in may. No trophy and he may feel he can do no more and has lost his mojo or win a trophy and go out on a relative high. I get the feeling he has had enough, i felt that before Saturdays debacle.
There should be an Arsenal version of Godwin’s Law where every debate leads to a discussion of whether or not Wenger will leave or be sacked.
how about just every time we have a shambolic defeat/meltdown where it looks like we have not even practiced and our previoulsy-praised ‘mental strength’ appears to, like the snows of yesteryear, vanish from this earth.
for example…
chelsea 6-0 arsenal
manure 8-2 arsenal
liverpool 5-1 arsenal
mcity 6-3 arsenal
newcastle 4-4 arsenal
birmingham 2-1 arsenal
bradford 1-1 arsenal (lost on pens)
blackburn 1-0 arsenal
If you keep saying that every March you’ll be right one day.
Akpom has one quality which the team as it stands is totally lacking in – pace. Play him!
you get thumbs up for the picture, I think giroud would be much improved with a few mass-effect generators!!
That’s a fucking insult to Ox and Gnabry.
The new Quincy?
Personally I don’t really like our “fashion model” posing as a striker, he does shit, he can’t shoot, can’t dribble and can’t compete for balls in the air. He’s like the “defenders-bitch” they all love to see him strike for us, because they know how to handle him, just make ur presence known to Giroud and he’ll melt! That’s what Wenger paid 12million pounds for, Bendtner in my opinion is far more better than our model. I still believe we can win the league but Wenger has to make these boys know that people pay a lot of money to… Read more »
Akpom to come off the bench and score a hattrick to add to the 4 we scored in the first half against city.
and then Kallstrom to round it of with a 40 yard screamer in extra time
What? We’re allowed to dream….
We can’t call back Joel Campbell?!?! Olympiakos has already clinched there league and are out of the champions league… Might as well bring him in for a little spark!
Well he got pace and strenght, and allways up for a run, and he is quite solid in hold up play aswell due to his strenght. Would not hurt to try something New up top, because big slow target man is not working to well is it. Arsenal through and through aswell having grown up supporting the Arsenal, dreaming to play for them one day, So we can expect him to be very Loyal to the club and work his arse off. But, why on eqrth does it look like someone jizzed on his face on that picture up there?… Read more »
Chuks Aneke has been banging them in lately for Crewe Alexandra, wonder if Wenger has plans for him anytime soon
Or the two of them together, imagine it Chucks to Chuba, Chuba back to Chucks, Chucks plays Chuba in and Chuba scores.
hahaha that would be brilliant
Maybe I’ll think about my last comment. It’s only from wiki, but it seems that he wasn’t ‘recalled’.
”After a poor display in his five appearances Coventry City manager Steven Pressley decided to cancel the loan with still nine games remaining.”
Bugger. Fuck it. I’ll play up front. Arsene, I’m fat and slow, but I can do seven keepy uppies. Sometimes.
No dont rethink it. He just got a hattrick against WestHam in the Youth Cup.
Guess Pressley just don’t know what to do with good players.
I don’t think that’s true and I do not trust wiki anyone could have written that bullshit!
By the way @slim that was the u21 premier league not the Youth Cup
Aware of that. Wiki is about 80% accurate it seems. Hat-trick you say?
Release the Chub.
Chub is the key?
Letting young players go on loan and then come back for UEFA Youth league and FA Youth Cup is nothing new. Josh Vickers and Austin Lipman have been doing it all season for Borham Wood. It’s just that as Coventry is a higher level they arnt happy about it. With Arsenal being out if the UEFA Youth League I suggest he had come back to be involved with the 1st team in some capacity.
Giroud’s apparent strengths are holding up the ball, so why does it bounce off him so often? He’s also good in the air, how many headers has he scored this season?
I said it from day one, the guy is not good enough… Plain and simple. If we don’t spend big I hope we at least get Remy, that guy will score a bucketload for us and actually offer some pace and movement too.
Yeah, if Giroud had been playing up front for us all season we’d be down in 16th now.
Huh? What’s that? He’s been playing for us all season? How the fuck did we get where we are then?
He’s scored 18 goals this season? That’s shit. Sack him for incompetence immediately.
We are heading into ludicrous territory up front. As I have mentioned, we are competitive in all other parts of the pitch to City, Liverpool or Chelsea bar up front where we are light weight and it shows with the GD ( not least with the 3 thumpings away to these respective teams) Giroud is a decent player to have physically against teams sitting deep against us. Which is why we have been relatively successful against teams beneath us. But when we are up against teams who can play us out of midfield, we are better off sitting deep (like… Read more »
Didn’t he score a hat-trick vs west ham today?
Only Wenger would think you can win the title with Giroud, Sanogo, Bendtner and Akpom as your central striking options. Dear oh dear. We’re supposed to be The Arsenal. Look at the top the league and work your way down – those players wouldn’t get into the starting eleven at any of the top three.
We were on target to do it until we lost Rambo, Wilshere, and Ozil. Funny that, eh? But yeah, it’s all Giroud’s fault. He’s been rubbish all season and his 12 league goals were no bloody help at all.