Arsenal are eager to tie Reiss Nelson down to a new contract before sending him out on loan for the year.
According to various reports, the England under-21 international is mulling over the offer. The winger’s current contract at the Emirates doesn’t end until June 2023.
Reiss Nelson has been offered a contract extension at Arsenal though it would be with a view to likely loaning him out, as previously reported clubs in Germany keen as are Olympiacos.
No guarantees he'll sign it. His current deal expires in two years.
— James Benge (@jamesbenge) July 1, 2021
Nelson turned down the chance to go on loan this time last year but following a season where he’s barely featured in the first team – he played a total of 440 minutes – he knows he needs regular football to kick-start his career.
Interest is apparently coming from Olympiacos and clubs in Germany. You’ll recall that Reiss had a very fruitful campaign with Hoffenheim in 2018/19 that raised expectations that he’d become a regular under Unai Emery.
It hasn’t worked out that way but it appears Mikel Arteta isn’t ready to give up on the player just yet.
Arsenal are also understood to have offered Eddie Nketiah a new deal but again would be open to the player spending a year elsewhere. The hope is that both players could follow in the footsteps of Joe Willock whose value has rocketed off the back of six months at Newcastle United.
Whether they want to extend their commitment to Arsenal remains to be seen, given their homegrown status and pedigree they may well fancy spreading their wings on a full-time basis.
Nketiah has been linked with clubs in Germany, West Ham and newly-promoted Watford.
Mismanaged last season . Hope things work out he has always been touted as one of our more stellar talents just seems to needs a bit more time to reach the level than Sakha and ESR. Don’t know if it will happen but he I certainly worth taking a chance on so I’m happy he isn’t being sold for peanuts after last years bench time. I doubt he’ll extend though.
Reiss chose to fight for his place on the team and turned down the loan moves. He mismanaged his own footballing career.
Honestly, he’s never convinced me. He isn’t at Arsenals caliber and should go where he will play regularly.
What is Arsenal’s calibre? We are out of Europe.
Reiss has looked bereft of confidence and we don’t know how much of it is down to what instructions are being given to him.
He is better than Willian even if he decides to take a nap mid-match.
The Arsenal’s calibre is not linked to one season out of Europe.
Then why are we out of Europe? I’d wager it’s, in part, due to a lack of that calibre of player!
An unproven young Englishman who couldn’t become a regular in the starting lineup at hoffenheim because of lack of end product isn’t Arsenal calibre
Needs to show he can produce regularly at first team level
The sooner we acknowledge where we are, the sooner the club improves. For most of the entitled fans, the day Wenger left has automatically unshackled this club able to challenge for top 4, win the league, win everything.
Time to smell the roses.
I doubt he’ll start ahead of either Saka or Pepe (or Martenilli who can also play on the right), so I suppose that’s the calibre of competition at the club he’s up against.
Would love to see him work his way into the first 11 at some point but atm he’s not better than our other options, so his options are loan move or sit on the bench. Pretty straightforward
Do you feel he has the potential to prove you wrong?
Because I’d agree if you tacked that on the end. From what I’ve seen won’t be consistent enough, but with a season of football under him he might find that consistency
Mismanaged? Some would suggest trying to fight for your place is a good thing. We don’t know what’s happened behind the scenes but it was hardly unreasonable for him to stay.
On ability and potential ability alone it’s hard too understand the amount of gametime Willian got in comparison to Nelson, personally i think Nelson should have gotten the same amount of chances as Willian, especially when we factor in how awfully Willian played throughout the season.
I’m 100 % certain Reiss would’ve done a better job with Willians minutes. That signing was just awful in every sense.
Absolutely this .
It’s easy to say this in hindsight so I’m not going to vilify Edu and Co for recruiting Willian (although the length of the deal was idiocy) .. but PERSISTING to start him ahead of our academy lads and Pepe … WOW .. Thats one of the costliest mistakes during my time as a fan the domino effect was massive.
I don’t disagree with any of the above, but Willian basically didn’t start after Christmas and Nelson still didn’t get a look in.
He needs to move on.
He still played often though.
If those minutes had gone to Nelson, his price wouldn’t have tanked like this, and he may we’ll have staked a claim for some of those starts.
There’s an argument to say Nelson didn’t make much of his chances. You could also argue he played in patchwork teams with no functioning # 10 and lacking any attacking cohesion in the first half of the season. Fair to say only 1 wide player in the squad played any decent games in the first half of the season (it wasn’t Willian). Not that we were brilliant in the second half of the season but we sometimes managed some decent performances. Nelson didn’t get to be a part of that. To me it seems like he simply wasn’t considered. He… Read more »
A lot of roads lead back to Ozil’s omission from the squad by Arteta.
But, hey, we’re not allowed to go there. Blind ignorance and hatred for one of our best players rather than facing Premiership table and horseshoe heat map facts in his absence are in vogue on here.
Continuing to beat the dead horse that was once a very talented horse but clearly had been off the pace for quite awhile.
The dead horse, mate, was last season.
If memory serves, Nelson was injured when both Willian and Pepe weren’t performing. That was a huge setback for him.
I agree that Willian was a terrible signing, which seem to be driven more by an ex-executive and his agent mate, rather than a view to what the squad actually needed.
L😂L. As if, we didn’t just finish 8th again. You’re acting like as if the players Mikel backed got us to a Champions League final. Reiss wanted to fight for a place at the start of the season before Willian was signed. When it became apparent, Mikel wasn’t going to give him minutes, he was open for a loan move in the winter transfer window. The club couldn’t reach an agreement with potential suitors because they wanted a loan fee and his wages to be split 50-50. So instead of sharing his minutes with Willian, Teta let him stagnate in… Read more »
Dude has quality no doubt, he just seems to lack belief in himself and it shows in a lack of decisiveness in his play. I’d be happy to see him extend and go out for a year. Seems like a smart move by Arsenal
“Lack of belief in himself” – yeah, as evidenced by his decision to stay and fight for his place.
The main issue with Nelson is the same as the main issue with Saliba – the manager.
I know he did , so yeah he had his part. But we persisted with Willian who was never required to perform better than Reese to get starts, I know who i would have invested time in. So again mismanaged and I include his personal advisors.
His minutes went to Willian.
Nketiah found himself in much the same boat, except he wasn’t allowed to go on loan.
We all know about Saliba.
Nelson’s Arsenal career is being mismanaged, alright – and so is the team.
F*ck off that high horse. We’ve finished 8th two consecutive seasons and you’re still living in 2004.
“Not Arsenal level.” The most deluded bullsh*t I’ve seen all day.
This approach is very good, going forward we cannot afford to lose out players for free.
To me this makes sense. It’s crazy to think that we pinned the majority of our academy hopes on him just two seasons ago.
But if I were him I’d be reluctant to sign. He definitely messed up by not going out on loan but Arteta hasn’t exactly shown too much faith in him.
I hope it happens but I’d understand if Reiss said thanks but no thanks and looked to move on permanently.
Time for your Jedi mind tricks again Mikel.
Indeed. Maybe for his next trick, Mikel will pretend to be a competent football manager.
Abracrapdabra 🎩🐰
His had such little game time youd wonder who the buyer for him might be
Ultimately the calamity was buying Willian…but he also had Pepe in front of him, and by January, Saka also, so definitely some of this falls on him for not reading the tea leaves by that point
Before you blame Arteta you should know that at around 7 games in, he was joint top scorer or joint second in the Bundesliga. He added around a couple for the rest of the season and barely got on the field after their winter break when they were chasing European football
He needed another loan spell but didn’t take it. Look at how ESR took his chance. Even Joe Willock in the Europa league. Sometimes it all comes back to the player.
Agree with this…the Reiss Nelson thing makes me think of Saliba/Fofana. People are very quick to shout out that Saliba was more “highly rated” than Fofana and since Fofana has done well in the PL then surely Saliba must. But development is a crooked, non-linear path. Saliba might tear it up or he might not have developed as quickly and struggle despite being a “bigger” prospect (they couldn’t have been that far apart as LC paid 30 mil for Fofana!). Reiss was the bees knees at 17-18, Saka was not thought of as a great prospect and look at them… Read more »
Fofana was given a chance. Saliba wasn’t.
It’s not like he’s underperformed where he’s played, it’s just that the manager didn’t allow him to play for Arsenal.
Nelson should certainly have been given game time over Willian, who was awful. He wasn’t.
It’s hard to prove you can play when your manager won’t give you a chance.
Doesn’t the club now have a specialist now who looks into loans? That guy earned his salary with Joe, now he’s got to get Reiss primed.
If you decide to stick with us I will be rooting for you, Reiss!
Yeah. It’s Ben Knapper I believe.
Hmmm.
Another one of ‘those’….
Could (should) have gone out on loan earlier and been ready for the first XI squad but instead chose to remain and didn’t get picked.
Knowing our luck if he signs he’ll turn out to be Joe Average but if we sell him he’ll probably become the next Pelé or something……
As I said, hmmm…..
Good luck persuading him doing so. Arteta didnt even bother to include him in the squad let alone playing him.
Another masterpiece from Arteta and Edu. Next year we’ll probably have the same shit with Saliba and maybe Balogun.
I like him but he needs more experience. Loan will be gooood.
This is where the lack of Europa League or Conference will hurt us – no chance to give young players a serious run out. League Cup is the only option until FA3.
Always want our players to come through to the first team and push us on. But for the likes of AMN, Eddie, Willock and Nelson, the bar is set very high with Saka being so good. Smith Rowe is there too but you cant just be ‘almost’ as good.
Yes you can. It’s not like we have three world class 10s lined up behind Smith Rowe.
Why?
Clearly he is not considered good enough for the first team so why offer an extension?
He will go out on loan once more – that is all his career has amounted to and we end up paying a player to play for another club.
Get shot of him.
Arsenal are full of players on huge salaries that will never be good enough..
He’s still better than the academy prospects you lot have over there at the Toilet Bowl.
Btw congratulations, your manager search is almost over. Mini-me searched all of Europe only to go back to another Mendes client. The stuff of geniuses🙌…
It doesn’t make sense to me either, looks like they’re trying to be clever.
We’ll give him a 4 year contract and he’ll end up leaving on a free transfer aged 25 after a succession of underwhelming loan moves.
Sell him this summer for a low fee with a large sell on clause if he makes it, my guess he won’t.
Everytime he has played he has been one of the good ones and one of his performances in europa was outstanding i hope we keep hin and he becomes a special player for us
Would love to see him on loan at Palace next season. Seems a good fit, and they’re certainly in need of players
I think he kinda made a mess of last season himself. From the evidence of Saliba and Willock we know that if Arteta doesn’t fancy you, you should go on loan. Both players had good seasons once they were able to play for someone else. They’re both in a position where their value is good but they also look like viable squad options (although that’s not guaranteed). The way I see it is that Nelson should have gone on loan last season although his wanting to prove himself was commendable. But because Arteta wanted him to go on loan he… Read more »
If he couldn’t get into the worst Arsenal team in a few decades, he doesn’t stand a chance if we improve. With his natural ability, there must be a problem in application.
Nelson is one of several players the club would sell in a heart beat if they received the right offer but as there’s no money in the game this summer it looks like they’re trying to difer it a year.
I’m not entirely sure what the merits of extending his contract is if he has 2 years left and you’ve already decide he’s not good enough. The club runs the risk of repeating the situation we had with the likes of Djourou, Denilson and Bendtner, where we were struggling to rid ourselves of overpaid and underplayed 24/25/26 year olds
I’d like to have seen him get some minutes as a 10. We tried an assortment of players there, with only ESR and Odegaard really shining. We’re now searching the market for someone to complement/understudy ESR in that creative role, but we may already have them in the squad.
Nelson is still only 21, so if his next season can be a good one (most likely on loan), he still has a chance to make a breakthrough at Arsenal. If not he can still fetch good money, but next season is going to be crucial.