Champions League: Latest updates from tonight’s fixtures including Arsenal, Real Madrid and Barcelona
Champions League: Latest updates from tonight’s fixtures including Arsenal, Real Madrid and Barcelona
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Arsenal’s executives are in the process of making important transfer decisions this week but it could be argued that the most significant of them all took place in the summer, when they decided to loan midfielder Fabio Vieira to Porto. It was a low-key move but it had potentially seismic implications for Arsenal’s season, and perhaps for future campaigns, too.
How so? Because the decision to loan Vieira was taken in order to create space in Mikel Arteta’s squad for Ethan Nwaneri. The prodigious 17-year-old had shown in training that he was ready for more action and he has since proven his class again and again on the pitch.
Nwaneri’s latest moment of inspiration came in the first half of Arsenal’s Champions League trip to Girona, as the teenager produced a fabulous long-range effort to help his team to victory. It was not a night of huge jeopardy for Arsenal, who had already done the hard work in the first phase of this competition, but it was certainly another step forward for Nwaneri.
“He is a player that has the capacity to finish from every angle,” said Arteta, who can be delighted with Arsenal’s third-place finish in the Champions League table. “He is willing to take the initiative to make things happen. He is very aggressive when he is on the ball.”.
With Arsenal desperate for attacking reinforcements, having made an approach for Aston Villa forward Ollie Watkins this week, they can at least take encouragement from Nwaneri’s decisiveness in front of goal. There can be little doubt that more of it will be needed in the weeks to come, even if they succeed in their pursuit of a new striker.
