First, he wheeled away with a big grin on his face, then he slid to his knees and, after being mobbed by his teammates at the corner flag, he took a moment to blow kisses to the crowd before raising both hands to the sky in a moment of gratitude.
Much like his all-around performance, Eddie Nketiah threw in a bit of everything as he celebrated his goal against West Ham on Boxing Day.
You can understand why. After three weeks of the outside world questioning whether he can provide effective cover for Gabriel Jesus, the striker produced a moment of class, pirouetting in the box before rifling past Lukas Fabianski, to suggest the Gunners are in good hands.
“It was really nice,” he told reporters afterwards. “Great ball from Martin and obviously a nice turn and finish. But I think I enjoyed the celebration more, just seeing how happy my teammates were for me.
“They’ve seen how hard I work and their reaction was amazing. It shows the real togetherness of the team when everyone celebrates like that.”
After the match, Mikel Arteta said that Jesus, who has undergone knee surgery following an injury sustained at the World Cup, was doing everything he can to help his understudy. The Brazilian, leg brace and all, was even in the dressing room before and after the 3-1 win over the Hammers congratulating his teammates.
“We’re all gutted that he’s injured because he’s a big part of the team,” said Nketiah.
“But I’m not trying to replace him and I’m not trying to be him. I can’t do what he does and he can’t do what I do.
“We’re different players but at the end of the day, we both want to help the team. Whether it’s me or him, we both support each other. I wish him a speedy recovery and hopefully, I can continue to help the team.”
Having shouldered the responsibility for leading the Arsenal attack in the closing months of last season, it’s not like the player is new to the pressure of being the centre of attention. On that occasion, his performances earned him a new deal at the club and the number 14 shirt. In every respect, he’s been desperate for this opportunity and he says the reason he has the manager’s faith is because of his performances every day in training.
“I think there’s a way of doing it,” he said of earning Arteta’s trust. “That’s through training every day, performing when you come on and giving your best.
“The manager knows what kind of person I am in terms of wanting to play all the time so I don’t particularly need to go knocking on his door every week. But he knows what type of player I am and he knows that whenever I am given the opportunity I will always give 100% to help the team.”
Nketiah’s next challenge will be repeating the feat at Brighton on New Year’s Eve. Roberto De Zerbi’s side is one of only three to beat us this season and is a real force at the Amex Stadium.
“It was good to pick up from where we left off and we want to continue that run. We want to keep pushing and finish as high as possible, and we’re in great form at the moment,” noted Nketiah.
“But I’m not trying to replace him and I’m not trying to be him. I can’t do what he does and he can’t do what I do.”
You got it Eddie
And so do I 🙂
The pundits keep saying he’s not as good as Jesus, which might be true in terms of dribbling and pressing, but they never mention the fact that he’s a better finisher.
Great turn and finish for the goal. Keep it going Eddie and you could become a regular for the next few seasons.
Any chance of him reaching the level of Ian Wright?
He needs to have a successful couple of seasons before that question could be even asked.
Don’t forget a long time ago Wrighty was a bit a of a mentor to him
Truly great team goal capped with a sumptuous turn and finish from Eddie. Fingers crossed that gives him the injection of confidence that he needs to be the vital cog the team needs for the rest of the season (I’d say the chances of Jesus coming straight and smoothly back after this injury are about 50:50 – not a great knee injury to get).
‘Ready Eddie!’
Definitely not short on confidence, and the attitude is spot on. Just needs to add consistency to the mix. Hope you take this chance with both hands, Eddie! Let’s do our part and get behind him.
Fatgooner has gone a bit quiet.
Usually he’s on here as Eddie’s biggest critic
TBF Fats came out yesterday saying with a smile “I knew he could do it”.
I didn’t see it. Fair play to the FG!
Calm down, onenil.
Nketia has only scored one goal (albeit a very good one). He owes us another 9 or 10 before the end of the season to justify his contract and the number 14.
Let’s see what he does against the likes of Newcastle, Spuds and City before we make a final judgement.
Whatever Eddie does we still need to sign a striker in the upcoming transfer window.
BTW: as your name is a proper noun it should really start with a capital letter. Maybe you should think about changing it.
Eddie owes you nothing.
Ha! Ha!
Those stats just prove the old saying that you can prove anything with statistics.
What about his OVERALL appearances? How many times has Nketiah come of the bench and not scored? And who did he score against when he did hit the net? Apart from those goals against the Chavs last season he’s never really done it against the big teams. EL and League Cup games don’t count in my book.
And maybe he should have had more shots on target in all those matches.
Strange arguments that stats prove nothing and that he’s only scored against certain teams. Remove those 11 goals and see the huge difference they’ve made.
Eddie can only score against teams he’s asked to play against and he’s delivered whenever called upon.
It is even more strange for you to think Eddie owes you anything.
Overall appearances is clearly not a better statistic when most appearances are off the bench for a few minutes. ‘minutes per goal’ is more accurate than both ‘goals per start’ or ‘goals per appeareance’. I tried finding this stats but I’m too lazy. Nonetheless I bet Eddie’s stats over the last year or so are pretty impressive
We won’t sign another striker in the upcoming window unless Eddie gets injured.
‘onenil’ is a non-word rather than a proper noun. Regardless, it should start with a capital letter, especially if he is using it as a name; which in turn, is a proper noun. Now may we stick to the question in hand? Jesus is a better all round player than Eddie, but Eddie is the better finisher of the two.
If he is using it as a name then it’s, er, a name.
And given it is my name, I’ll capitalise it how I like!
OK?
I see what you did there 🙂
Alright, then; just don’t expect me to call myself fatgooner.
When Eddie starts, there’s a good chance he’ll score
He’ll be in double digits by the time Jesus is back
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!
Fatgooner I agree with you about the proper noun.
FG has been rightfully concerned about only having one relatively unproven back up to GJ – but it’s down to Eddie to prove the doubters wrong – so far so good for Eddie. I think the pursuit of Mudryk rather than a 9 shows we are not concerned about Eddie as a back up, but do also now require wing options so that we have wide cover if Eddie gets injured and we have to switch Martinelli inside (or possibly play ESR false 9)
I am 100% behind Eddie, and I’ve total faith that given service he will stick chances away, possibly at a better conversion rate than GJ. Time will tell how his overall game has improved, and how consistently he can deliver. But all said and done, we have a lot of football to play between now and March, so an extra forward option does feel essential. Eddie will likely need a rest at some point.
If there are concerns we have just one backup to GJ, they’re valid but no way can we blame it on Eddie. He’s always tried his best and recent his recent outings has been fruitful. So, why the continuous Eddie slander
As lovely as the goal was it was the improvement of his all round game that I’m most happy about. Onwards and upwards Eddie lad.
It’s dawned on me that it’s the team and the system that is winning us matches not individual players. We need to thank Arteta for that imo.
You need only look at how we looked in the Europa League to understand that a lot comes from the players IN the system though – the first 11 we have are critical, and replacing any one of them changes the way the system works. I feel like at striker, Nketiah for Jesus is the most like-for-like replacement we have in the team and impacts the way we play the least – not to say it doesn’t affect us though. I wish Eddie the best, and if his decision making sharpens up over the next few weeks, he will really… Read more »
I think, like you, that Arteta’s got this right. It will probably be tested more than previously in the coming months when the going gets tougher in the PL and we probably lose players more often to injury etc.
Yep, you got that right!
And to think I was one of the “doubters”!
SO happy to be proved wrong! COYG!
Couldn’t agree more. Just look at the just concluded WC. Most of our players were reduced to bench warmers. Even our best defenders, did not play. It shows you how good the gaffer is.
Correct conclusion but wrong process. There are many reasons why our players didn’t play. Saliba and Martinelli were too young and had ahead of them established superstars, Jesus didn’t suck properly Neymar and White has so much smaller head than Maguire
Everyone talks about Jesus missing but I think Tomiyasu is also a big miss for us. I really enjoyed watching him play on the left with Ben White on the right our defense was so solid. I love KT but for some reason he is not as good as he used to be. Opponents target our left a lot and most of the errors come from that end. His deliveries in the box are also not the same.
Good for Eddie. Let’s hope he can keep up his good start. We’re going to need to continue to get goals from across the team as we enter the crucial part of the season and teams behind us step up the pressure.
Excellent attitude from Eddie. I think huge credit has to be given to Per mertesacker for the culture of humility installed in our young prospects. I recall an interview with the BFG many moons ago where he spoke of the year of national service he completed as a young man in Germany – if I recall correctly he was a support worker for the elderly for 12 months – and he spoke of how much impact this had on his own attitude and outlook on life as he became a man. We have seen recently the comments from Arteta about… Read more »
MO8 only has 6 premier league goals, Eddie can still catch him and be our top scorer this season.
Attitude is more than 50% of it. As White said, he was never the most talented growing up, just worked the hardest. Eddie seems to have understood that which is so rare at his fair age
Nketiah is doing just great. Long may it continue.
Keep it coming, man.
You can see there’s potential in there. I was worried we would make a bad decision to let him leave and he would be like Gnabry.
Weird thing is that I have literally never been here to see Eddie play well. Last season I didn’t watch the games during is great spell of games (I had health issues don’t blame me). Only games I saw last season he was either invisible or he came on late and got a stupid red card that made us lose.
And this game I just watched the first half…
Maybe I should stop watching games when he starts ?
What about Zaha?
Great player but not our target age profile and rightly so. He might do a Pogba/CR7 and rejoin man u for £150m and then flop.
Brighton away is as tricky a banana skin as there is in the prem. Hope Eddie and our lads the best. We will need to be 100% ‘on it’ to get a result in that game and have the luckier breaks fall in out favor too.
Pleased for him and class that Jesus was there in the dressing room and is helping Eddie!