Mikel Arteta has played down suggestions that Reiss Nelson might leave on loan in January, and revealed that the winger’s absence from recent match-day squads is due to fitness issues and nothing more.
The 21 year old’s last appearance was on December 3rd in the 4-1 Europa League win over Rapid Vienna, and while there were some reports of a head injury, he wasn’t listed as an casualty in the club’s injury updates.
However, the manager says that Nelson hasn’t been fully fit and that’s why he hasn’t been included.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s trip to West Brom, Arteta said “He had a little niggle.
“He’s not been feeling 100%, he had a muscular issue. He’s been in and out of training, and it’s a shame because I felt he was getting into his performance levels.
“He started to have some really good games, and he was starting to build that momentum, and this little injury set him back a little bit.
“But this week he has been much better.”
On the prospect of a January move and the speculation about his future because of his absence, Arteta said, “No. Probably it’s my mistake not to clarify the situation, and what was happening.
“But, he’s not been 100% fit, and that’s the reason he’s been out and not featuring in the squad.”
It’s been a stop start season for Reiss, with just seven appearances in all competitions.
The crowded nature of the right hand side, with Bukayo Saka, Nicolas Pepe and Willian all in the mix might limit his chances even further, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if he did go on loan, despite what the manager says.
Let’s see what happens.
Play him instead of William
Play a goat / a brick / a dog / a carbon rod instead of Willian (*delete as appropriate)
Blogs would do a better job I think, would care more for sure!
Totally agree. If he is fit, let’s see what he can do for Arsenal
Gallas? Bit out of position
Play you and i instead of willian. Anyone.
we have gabi and saka we should play ESR instead of elneny amn for xhaka and reiss in AM gabi left hand side saka right and laca as no.9
Injury or not, it feels like a WF has to leave in January. With Saka, Pepe, Martinelli and Willian competing for two roles, something’s got to give.
He can play left or right and is better than Pepe and Willian so he should get game time. I’m glad Mikel has clarified this, I was starting to think he just didn’t rate him and wasn’t giving him chances. I want to see AMN play some more too.
I honestly think we should take the hit and sell Pepe back to France for whatever we can get, and Edu should be having words with Joorabchian about getting rid of Willian.
Unfortunately Willian is probably here for his full 3 year contract. No other club would match those 250,000 a week wages.
Yes, this was bad bussiness and unfortunately he will be here for 2,5 more years soooo pleeeease Arsenal fans, stop picking on him because, really, what good does it do to OUR team? There are some aspects of the human side of this situation that some of you dont seem to get. Have you thought about what its like for his kids or close people reading/hearing stuff about how “bad” Willian has been? How it affects Willian ON A HUMANLY LEVEL? Yes, critique is needed, but come on, dont be assholes because 99.9% of you would not have the cojones… Read more »
Agree. Harder to remember we are all human with the same wants, needs and desires when typing into a keyboard. The energy you create in life, positive or negative, effects your life directly. You may not recognize the effect but it happens. The world needs positive energy right now, add to it, don’t take away.
I would quite happily tell him to his face that he needs to shift his lazy little arse and stop taking the mickey. Nothing personal.
We were dumb enough to sign him for 3 years. If he was good chelsea would have kept him. Another Ozil situation in our hands unfortunately.
I agree that he’s probably here for the full three years, which is a horrible thought, but he’s not on 250K a week. He’s on 120K a week. You’re factoring in the 15M signing bonus he got.
i wouldnt believe everything your glorious leader mikel tells you.
He was more use not being in the squad than Willian has been on the pitch. Seriously though in the minutes he has got and would even say he has done more than Pepe.
Not sure there is room for either of them with Saka and Martinelli in the wide positions.
Play Will.i.am from black eyed peas instead of Willian
Yeah honestly Willian needs to just be our back up. He’s not been up to scratch for the PL, but we’re stuck with him for 3 years, so he needs to be our cup guy only
Loan or ship Willian out to China. Keep Nelson
A loan move would not be a bad idea provided the club is the right one.
The infamous situation withTony Pulis and Gnabry springs to mind.
The only thing we should send to Pubis is “haha, you got sacked greeting” for the new year.
Can’t we loan out willian, to Chelsea maybe? Cause he was happy playing for them
Send out Willian on loan.
Mikel didn’t exactly say that ‘No, his future is very much at Arsenal’ but I hope he’s as good as his word as Reiss has a lot to offer and I want to see him offering it in an Arsenal shirt…
Send Willian and maybe Pepe on loan. Its not difficult. We’ll pay their wages anyway.
Exactly this. This is a KSE issue because they weren’t minding the store and when they got around to looking at what was going on, we had found ourselves owning a Willian. We didn’t need a Willian but here we are and its KSE’s responsibility to front the cash to loan him out to fix the problem.
I’m really worried that he will be our next Gnabry- huge potential, couple of promising appearances, a lot of fitness problems, some loan, a transfer for like 5 bucks and then he will flourish somewhere else :/ I hope that we will be much wiser with him and with the rest of the young players.
If we stick with Walcott for 12 years, maybe we could stick with some other talents for that period in the first squad and still get some money in the end for them 😉
I want Nelson to do well but I’m not sure about him..For a player with good pace and trickery his numbers even when he plays don’t back up his talent.
He and Willock seem to have stagnated in their development. His ceiling does not seem as high as Gnabry’s. I remember seeing Gnabry play and thinking this kid is better than Ox and Walcott, his game was almost a mix of the two at the time. but Wenger always persisted with them, rather than Gnabry.
We should be playing Nelson more to build his value, whether he ultimately comes good for Arsenal or not. He’s a PL player for some team, maybe ours but the kid has value if you play him. If he has a niggle fine but we weren’t playing him when he didn’t have the niggle. Too many cup games missed he could have featured in to increase his value. Iwobi prime example of how to build value. The kids needs to play, if we don’t get him a loan, Arteta needs to build his value by giving him minutes.
I see what you’re saying to a degree. Gnabry’s talent was absolutely blatant, and he should have been a starter. That being said, let’s see what Willock and Nelson can do in the new setup with creativity through the middle. Willock is not a CAM; he could be an immense b2b midfielder. Nelson will be more productive with the central threat liberating wide areas (Pepe too imo).
He’s already better than Willian. Let’s hope for a quick recovery
I get your point, but comparing a youngster who has achieved nothing yet in the game to a weather beaten veteran, someone who has achieved a lot and at the twilight of his career, makes little sense to me.
Neilson might come good at the end of the day, but it’s not as if Willian benched him. He wasn’t playing last season.
We need all players with the games coming up, so it would be crazy to loan him or sell him. Needs chances and deserves them, more than willian or Pepe.
He is ahead of will-i-aint in the pecking order surely!!!
He’s not good enough for Arsenal football club
There I said it
Finally he tells us! Odd…
He has certainly got potential but has not yet shown he is quite at the level required imho. Real shame though about his fitness issues as was hoping he would ‘kick on’ and show more this season. Hopefully he still can in the NY? At the moment we have Reiss, Joe Willock & Eddie as young players that need to prove themselves to be regular Prem level for Arsenal. I think JW would get more games if he was more ‘switched on’ tactically. Im not sure any are really good enough to be 1st team regulars at the moment. Decent… Read more »
When i see what Saka, Martinelli and ESR are doing, I can’t but think JW, Reiss and Eddy are overrated by a section of the fans.
Of the 3, the only one with a slim chance of making the first team on a regular basis is Reiss.
I don’t Willock and Eddy to still be in Arsenal in two seasons.
Good point & that may well be the case.
Saka & Martinelli are certainly a big step above. ESR I think while not at the level of those 2 now has a real chance to get there & become a regular 1st team player.
if 1 or 2 of Reiss, JW & Eddy make it even to be a good squad player great. If not hopefully they are good enough to command a decent fee.
Send Willian out on loan
Send Willian on loan to Mars.
Keep Nelson
In fairness Willian didn’t get a pick for the last two games.
But I dread his reappearance
Can we send Willian out on loan to develop instead?
Personally for me Reiss (RN) can play all the three positions with Martinelli, ESR & Saka. They can all rotate and RN can sub in for any one of them.
good point I would like to hope Reiss can do a job. Not sure if he is suited to the esr ’10’ role but perhaps?
Saka is a left footed 19 year old playing from the right and Martenelli is a 19 year old just coming back from injury. They’ve made us look so much better but they cant play every game now till the end pf the season. Reiss is an excellent option. We’ve seen that given the chance and the right emphasis on right, senior players around them we’ll get something from them and im of the opinion Reiss is one of our most talented academy prospects. We have a perfect opportunity to get him in the team and showing what he can… Read more »
Better than pepe
Send Willian on loan to Chelsea so that we can play Nelson while also enjoy Willian raising his levels playing for his team. It is never good when you are not enjoying the job you are paid for.