Six months into the season, let’s have a look at how each of Arsenal’s loanees is doing so far.
Krystian Bielik
- Position: Centre-back/Defensive Midfield
- Loaned to: Charlton – League One
- Appearances: 23
- Goals: 2
- Assists: 1
- Clean sheets: 9
Krystian Bielik started the campaign in decent form, before picking up another injury. That sparked concerns that this season could turn out the same way as his last one, where he barely played. However, the defender has since returned to the pitch and put together a run of 19 consecutive league appearances.
Bielik moved back and forth between the Charlton defence and defensive midfield at first, but he’s been playing as a midfielder since mid-November, so it seems he’s set to play there for the remainder of the season. He’s earning a lot of positive reviews and has become a key part of the League One side.
The main thing is that the Polish u21 international is staying fit, since recovering from that injury in September. Arsenal already have enough centre-backs taking regular injury breaks, so Bielik needs to keep proving he can be more reliable.
Loan rating: 7.5/10
Calum Chambers
- Position: Centre-back/Defensive Midfield
- Loaned to: Fulham – Premier League
- Appearances: 20
- Goals: 1
- Clean sheets: 2
On the surface, Chambers has had a very similar loan spell to Bielik. He started as a first-choice centre-back, before dropping out of the team and picking up an injury. Then he moved to defensive midfield and has remained there ever since.
The Englishman hasn’t had quite the same rave reviews as his Polish counterpart, but he’s certainly earning more praise as the season goes on. He’s playing in a much more competitive league than Bielik of course.
Under Claudio Ranieri, Chambers has been a regular fixture in the team, but they still need to do more as a group to have any chance of staying up this season.
Loan rating: 6/10
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David Ospina
- Position: Goalkeeper
- Loaned to: Napoli – Serie A
- Appearances: 17
- Clean sheets: 6
Moving on to the goalkeepers, David Ospina has made a good start to life in Italy. At first, the fans weren’t sure about the club bringing in a goalkeeper who was way down the pecking order with Arsenal, but he’s won them over pretty quickly.
Despite only keeping a limited number of clean sheets, Ospina has put in a fair few impressive performances, particularly in the Champions League. Keeping a clean sheet in the win over Liverpool and earning Napoli two draws against PSG with his saves can’t do any harm to his reputation.
Plus, he’s on a great run right now, having not conceded in his last three games.
In fact, the rumours are that Napoli now want to activate their option-to-buy, regardless of whether Ospina reaches the minimum number of appearances to activate their compulsory purchase clause. That’s ideal for Arsenal, who would really prefer to move him on at this stage.
It hasn’t been a perfect campaign for Ospina so far, considering the number of goals he let in early on. Plus, he hasn’t started as many games since Alex Meret’s return from injury. Nonetheless, things are going pretty well in general.
Loan rating: 7.5/10
Matt Macey
- Position: Goalkeeper
- Loaned to: Plymouth Argyle – League One
- Appearances: 28
- Clean sheets: 4
At first, Macey got a lot of game time with Plymouth, but that never translated into many clean sheets.
The Plymouth fans blamed this on the defence for a while, and they insisted Macey was doing a good job. However, they’ve since grown a bit more impatient with the goalkeeper, particularly when it comes to parrying the ball back into danger.
The manager similarly lost his patience and dropped the 24-year-old towards the end of December. Since then, Macey hasn’t appeared in a single one of Plymouth’s seven league games, and unfortunately, they’ve been on their best run of the season without him, winning five of those games and only losing one.
The one positive is a couple of penalty saves from the goalkeeper. Otherwise, he needs to get back in the team and performing well to have a chance at Arsenal.
Loan rating: 4/10
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Kelechi Nwakali
- Position: Central Midfield
- Loaned to: FC Porto B – Ledman Liga Pro
- Appearances: 13
Though he went on loan to Porto, Nwakali was always expected to start off playing for their B team. The hope was that if he impressed at that level, the senior side might start calling.
Things didn’t go as planned at first, and he really struggled to get any game time at all, even for Porto B. However, the turn of the year has seen the youngster get a second chance in the team, and he’s started all six of their matches in 2019, playing 90 minutes in half of those.
Porto B are on a good run in those matches too, with four wins and two draws. Hopefully, Nwakali’s strong form and consistent playing time will continue for the next few months. One other positive for the campaign so far is that he got a call-up to the Nigeria national team, even if that was a while ago now.
None of this negates the fact that Nwakali only played 289 minutes of football (just over three games’ worth) in the first five months of the campaign. Still, at least he’s going in the right direction now.
Loan rating: 4.5/10
Takuma Asano
- Position: Second Striker
- Loaned to: Hannover 96 – Bundesliga
- Appearances: 11
- Goals: 1
- Assists: 1
Asano had a fantastic pre-season with Hannover, scoring or assisting pretty much every game in a long preparation period. When the season began, he kept that going with a goal and assist in his first cup game, but didn’t so well in his first three league games.
After that, he dropped to the bench, making a couple of brief substitute appearances. He then struggled with a couple of injuries, though recently returned to face Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig.
If we only look at the competitive matches, Asano really needs to be making more of an impact. Two goal contributions in 11 games, both against German third-tier side Karlsruher SC, isn’t good enough.
Loan rating: 3/10
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Reiss Nelson
- Position: Winger
- Loaned to: Hoffenheim – Bundesliga
- Appearances: 20
- Goals: 6
- Assists: 1
Nelson is the undisputed star of Arsenal’s loanees so far this season. An impressive six goals in fourteen league appearances (five starts) shows just how quickly he’s adapted to life at senior level. They’ve all been important goals as well, either giving Hoffenheim the lead, drawing them level or getting them back into a game from multiple goals down.
That’s not to say everything has been perfect. Sport Bild highlighted that Nelson’s dribbling could improve, even if his pace is unmatched in the Hoffenheim team. Plus, manager Julian Nagelsmann suggested the winger needed to work on his defensive contribution to the team, and that’s why he’s mostly being introduced from the bench.
However, the Hoffenheim boss has seemingly been impressed with Nelson’s response to their conversations about his development. After a minor injury over the winter break, the English youngster returned to the team from the bench against Dusseldorf last week.
Despite one or two performances showing he still has room to get better, Nelson is undoubtedly having a big impact at Hoffenheim. That’s exactly what you want from a 19-year-old. With any luck, the rest will come with more experience.
Loan rating: 8/10
Emi Martinez
- Position: Goalkeeper
- Loaned to: Reading – Championship
- Appearances: 2
- Clean sheets: 1
Emi Martinez only moved on loan to Reading a couple of weeks ago, so he hasn’t had much of a chance to settle in yet.
Nonetheless, he’s already kept his first clean sheet, winning the fans’ man of the match award in his home debut. He conceded one goal in his other match, to an unstoppable close-range effort in stoppage time. Overall, a great start, but too early to tell how things will go.
Loan rating: N/A
Emile Smith Rowe
- Position: Winger/Attacking Midfielder
- Loaned to: RB Leipzig
- Appearances: 0
Emile Smith Rowe also moved on loan in the January window, but he did so with both clubs knowing he’s still recovering from an injury. He won’t play for the next couple of weeks as a result. Hopefully, once he returns, his loan will be a really positive learning experience.
Leipzig are certainly a top team in Germany, so it’s great they’ve taken an interest in the Arsenal youngster.