Can Madueke make the difference for Arsenal?

Arsenal’s imminent signing of Chelsea’s Noni Madueke set fire to social media, with Gooners begging the club to ditch the deal.

It’s a familiar path that many players have trod over recent years, with the likes of Jorginho, Kai Havertz and Raheem Sterling swapping Stamford Bridge for The Emirates Stadium and west for north London, joining a long list of luminaries that includes William Gallas, Lassana Diarra, Petr Cech, Willian and David Luiz.

It would be fair to say that only a handful of those signings could be qualified as being successful, and that is just one of the reasons why Arsenal fans have gotten the heebie jeebies learning that the club is about to drop £48 million on Noni Madueke.

What does past transfer business between Arsenal and Chelsea tell us?

A lot of that frustration is built on history, and many Arsenal fans thinks that when Chelsea are looking to offload a player they deem surplus to requirements, Arsenal are more than happy to come and take them off their hands, normally at a profit for the Stamford Bridge bean counters. There’s a feeling that the Gunners can’t help but bail out our old London rivals when it comes to satisfying those pesky PSR demands when they should be making life as difficult as possible for them.

Everyone knew that Chelsea would have to sell an asset this summer to balance the books, and that’s despite rolling in the filthy lucre of the winning the Club World Cup and the £100 million that goes with it, so why couldn’t Arsenal bide their time and wait for Madueke? There didn’t seem to be a market for the player and there doesn’t seem to be an urgent need for Arsenal to bring in the 23-year-old attacker immediately with players like Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard and wonderkid Ethan Nwaneri in the squad.

The answer? Mikel Arteta appears to want to get all of his signings integrated as quickly as possible this season, but hold on, won’t Madueke be given some time off after warming the Chelsea bench in the USA during the Club World Cup?

Hmmm….. we’re hearing that Arsenal see Madueke as an option for the left and an exciting back-up for the clubs best player Bukayo Saka. And here lies further frustration, during Saka’s absence last season, Ethan Nwaneri emerged as a versatile attacking player that could operate off the right, and he registered some decent numbers. He made 26 PL appearances (895 mins) and registered four goals and two assists, with a load of those coming from the bench. Madueke made 32 PL appearances (2049 mins) and registered seven goals and three assists – when you consider he played more than double the amount of mins as Nwaneri, it’s easy to see why Gunners are questioning the wisdom of curtailing the Hale End prospects opportunities at the expense of a player that didn’t deliver the goods that often for a Chelsea side that finished fourth last season.

What does ESPN’s Don Hutchison think of the deal?

Last week, we shared Don Hutchison’s thoughts on the potential transfer, with the footy favourite declaring that he “didn’t understand” the transfer citing the emergence of Nwaneri, and it’s his potential lack of opportunity plus Arsenal’s history in having their pants pulled down by Chelsea which has seen a petition signed more than 4,000 times, #NoToMadueke gaining traction on X, and murals outside the club’s stadium vandalised with ‘Arteta out’ with the intension of stopping the transfer.

It doesn’t appear to have had the desired effect, with Madueke expected to be announced as an Arsenal players within the next few days.

What will he add to the Gunners squad? Well, he’s pacy, direct, but his end product leaves a lot to be desired and Arsenal seem well stocked in terms of options on the right hand side. Is he the type of signing that allows Arsenal to get one step closer to the title? We don’t think so. Is he what Arsenal need? Again, it’s hard to say that he is and the arguments that he can operate on the left as well as the right don’t seem to hold up.

The Essential Football verdict?

Once bitten, but not twice shy when it comes to buying from Chelsea, it’s hard to see Madueke being anything other than a squad player at The Emirates Stadium this season and having a limited impact. Surely splashing the cash on Crystal Palace maverick Ebe Eze would have been a much better move for Mikel Arteta and transfer guru Andrea Berta. The rumours suggest that Eze could still be an option, but there’s no doubt he should have been prioritised over Madueke in our opinion.

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