Danny Welbeck might have played his last game in Arsenal colours as he suffered a season-ending injury against Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League game. The Englishman has entered the final year of his contract, and so far there has been no indication that the Gunners could look to offer him a new deal. Therefore it wouldn’t’ be too far-fetched to infer that he might have played his last game for the Gunners.
This latest injury has brought the transfer rumour mill churning with quite a few reports doing the round that Unai Emery could go after a forward or an attacker in the January window to fill the void left by the English forward’s injury.
However, Emery recently gave a clear indication that he would rather look internally in the club to replace someone like Welbeck instead of wasting a few million to land his replacement in January.
The Spanish manager was asked recently whether he would look to bring in reinforcements in the attacking department in January to which he replied,”The first [choice] is to look inside, and we have one striker also who is working well with the under-23s and is improving also, Eddie Nketiah, and he could have chances. But I think it’s early for speaking about the possibility [of making signings] in January.”
Arsenal can also call someone like Reiss Nelson who is on loan with Bundesliga outfit Hoffenheim. However, we think that would be a bad idea as Nelson is getting some good game time with the German outfit and has found his footing in the Bundesliga having scored six goals in seven appearances. At Arsenal, he is likely going to be a called upon only to give a breather to the likes of Henrikh Mkhitaryan or Alexandre Lacazette or Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. Therefore we believe staying in Germany is the right thing for his overall development.
19-year-old Nketiah has already scored a goal for the Gunners this season in the Carabao Cup, and it is likely that he would get more into the frame for some first-team action.
With two heavyweight forwards like Aubameyang and Lacazette at their disposal, Emery doesn’t need to spend loads on the backup option as it is likely that the new striker wouldn’t see much game time. Therefore getting someone like Nketiah to fill in could be the right ploy.
A move like this might not satisfy the fans and one can understand from their perspective as well as the race to top 4 currently looks tough. Even after being unbeaten in 15 games in all competitions, the Gunners find themselves on the fifth spot in the Premier League table. But the fans need to trust their manager and we feel he is taking the right call here.
