Are Arsenal fans over-hyping Eddie Nketiah or is the 18-year-old striker the real deal?
Arsenal fans are admittedly guilty of over-hyping young players after one good performance. Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Chuba Akpom, Alex Iwobi. We all seem to be desperately clutching for a starlet to come through the ranks and take the Premier League by storm.
Maybe because in a world of £200m transfer fees and Robin van Persies, we just want a loyal player who Arsenal have coached themselves. Something to support Arsene Wenger’s lack of astronomical spending to keep up with the other big teams.
This is probably why we like Jack Wilshere so much but obviously, I should point out, that the 25-year-old is far from over-hyped.
Eddie seems to be the latest young player Gooners are desperate to have succeed.
On Tuesday night, you could hear the 18-year-old’s name ring out around the Emirates after he came on in the 85th minute to bring Arsenal from 1-0 down to 2-1 up against Norwich in minutes.
Although he’s not really a product of Arsenal’s academy since we only signed him two years ago after Chelsea decided not to offer him a scholarship, he’s still a reserve player who, for the immediate future, is a Gunner.
So, after two senior goals, are we over-hyping young Eddie like so many others before him?
Fans who have been watching the teenager with the young squad don’t seem to think so. In fact, Gooners on Twitter have been begging for the lad to get a decent run out for weeks.
Last season, he scored 24 goals in 33 appearances.
Eddie is a clinical out-and-out striker, which is perhaps why his display on Tuesday was so impressive to on-lookers. We’re not used to it.
He’s always looking to score and, in a team where most of the forwards appear to want to play hot potato with the ball in the box or walk it into the net, he could go far.
Are we over-hyping him? At the moment probably yes. He’s young, exciting and full of energy – it’s hard not to. But we won’t really know until one or two year’s time when we’ve gotten an idea of how often he’s featuring for the first team and how well he’s performing when he does.
Will he continue to get the odd League Cup game here or will he be well on his way to regular first team action?
For the moment, let’s just enjoy watching him when we can.