Scouting Notebook: Arsenal Must Harness the Raw Talent of Reiss Nelson Properly

Pre-season can be a difficult period for fans to navigate. They’re told over and over that results don’t matter—they are, after all, friendlies and money-spinning exhibition matches—and that you should never get too excited about what you’ve seen take place in Singapore, Shanghai and Sydney.

But excitement can be difficult to bury when you see new ideas taking shape, new signings integrating to good effect and, perhaps most of all, some of the club’s finest youngsters given the chance to strut their stuff alongside the senior guys.

Arsenal fans in particular have it tough in this regard. Summer after summer, they’re treated to fine performances from the academy products given a chance to shine, with the likes of Gedion Zelalem, Serge Gnabry and Jeff Reine-Adelaide lighting pre-season up in the past. It sparks hope and optimism that they can win a place in the team, but history suggests it never comes to fruition.

The latest of these cycles is upon is, and the player in question is Reiss Nelson. He’s more than matched the established Arsenal senior players during their summer exploits, impressing against Sydney-based clubs, Bayern Munich and Benfica.

There has been plenty to concern Gooners over the last month—from Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil’s contract sagas to Wojciech Szczesny’s emotional, perhaps premature farewell—but Nelson’s performances have been a crumb of comfort in an uncertain time.

The 17-year-old cuts a diminutive, slight figure on the flank, and he doesn’t look particularly suited to the wide role in Arsenal’s 3-4-3 formation on paper, but when passed the ball and given the chance to show what he can do, he excelled.

Credit: HD1

An agile, quick player, he proceeded to dart around markers and beat players with consummate ease. That wasn’t thanks to an overwhelming physicality or an outrageous top speed, but super feet and a rare quickness in tight spaces. He constantly drove forward into the right-wing space and committed players, opening up holes for runners to exploit.

There is an ease with which he slaloms around players that you might label distinctly un-English. A bit like Jadon Sancho of Manchester City, he just seems to glide past opponents and make fools of attempted tacklers.

When he wasn’t making inroads down the wing, he was drifting inward, comfortable with the ball at his feet and happy to pause, wait and spot a run to find. A few of his longer cross-field passes were genuinely exceptional, with the switch ball to Ozil against Sydney FC a clear example of mastery in that area. The only thing more impressive than the pass was the way the German hooked it down with a single, defining touch.

Credit: HD1

Nelson even tracked back doggedly, fulfilling his defensive duties as the right-wing-back in full. He was quick to close his man down no matter the opponent and, while he lacked a genuine sense of position in those circumstances and relied more on closing the distance quickly and engaging, that’s not a slight on him...because he’s not a wing-back.

At youth level, he’s been a box of tricks and creativity in more advanced positions for more than a year. He’s produced some true highlight-reel moments, such as a back-heeled finish against Chelsea in May and untold numbers of cute passes into dangerous final-third areas.

He’s played as the No. 10 as well as wide, partnering the likes of Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Reine-Adelaide and, at times, outshining them.

Arsenal have relied on him as a prime creator at PL2 level in 2017, which has seen him mix it with reserve pros like Mamadou Sakho and Ola Aina, and fine talents aged two or three years his senior, like Charly Musonda and Sheyi Ojo. That’s been an education for him, and a pre-season spent playing alongside the likes of Alexandre Lacazette and Olivier Giroud has furthered that still.

Steve Bardens/Getty Images

The question now becomes how his pathway to the first-team eventually emerges and how the club handle his ascent. He can’t expect to play right away, but among the aforementioned talents at the beginning of this piece, such as Zelalem, there have been premature declines just as rapid as their initial ascents.

Arsenal need to manage him in a way that avoids that—and avoids situations such as the one Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is in.

The Ox is a remarkably talented player, but after excelling at youth level as a tucked-in right-sider in a 4-4-2, was never given the chance to make the role his own (largely because the role has been redundant at Arsenal for years). Since then he’s been turfed around the pitch, fancied as “the future” in at least three different roles, and to be frank, hasn’t got any better since bursting onto the scene.

Arsenal’s conveyor belt of talent continues to roll uninhibited, with Nelson the latest off it, but the roadblocks are placed at a later stage, when they reach the critical age in terms of playing time and positioning. Nelson showed the world what he’s been producing at youth level for years this summer; now, let’s hope Arsenal harness it properly.

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