Reiss Nelson’s progress at Arsenal delayed once again | OneFootball

Arsenal winger to be out for two months

Injury is the most frustrating part of a footballer’s career. Seeing your teammates enjoy football on the pitch, while you sit there, watching them from the sofa is never a nice feeling.

It’s an even worse feeling when you’re trying to put your career back on track. And that’s the situation where Reiss Nelson finds himself in.

The 22-year-old has been sidelined for two months with a quad injury. Which will certainly end his hopes of making a move away from the club this summer.

The English youngster is one of whole host of names in the red half of London who were expected to be on the transfer list.

Even though no club approached Arsenal for the winger until now, things were expected to change, as the transfer deadline day gradually shifted closer and closer.

As The Athletic reported last month, if the Hale End graduate would have failed to find a new home, he would have been given minutes to impress manager Mikel Arteta this season.

Now, he won’t even be able to feature for the Gunners, especially the Europa League group stages matches, in which he would have certainly featured if it was not for his injury.

Arteta had high hopes from Nelson when he was appointed the head-coach of the club he formerly captained.

“Reiss has the potential to do whatever he wants,” Arteta said at the start of 2020. “If he wants to do it, wants to learn and wants to challenge himself he can be a top, top player for this football club.”

The former Man City assistant continued, “At the moment I think he is on the right path, with the right attitude and then there are a lot of factors: he needs to deal with pressure, deliver every three days, score more goals and make the difference more for the team because he has the quality to do that.”

After starting three of the first five matches under the Spaniard, it looked like Nelson’s career would only move in a positive direction.

However, little has gone his way since then. In the 2020/21 campaign, he only made nine appearances for Arsenal. While, last season, he moved out on loan to Dutch club Feyenoord, where the youngster had a mediocre season until a late surge saw him produce some of his best football.

At the moment, a way back in the first team looks unlikely for a player who seemed a top talent as a teenager. But it would be naïve to write him off just yet.

Look at Eddie Nketiah, for example. The Englishman, who did not look good enough for Arteta’s Arsenal project, extended his contract and will be expected to play a lot of football in the current campaign after a productive end to last season.

Things can change very quickly in football. Nelson, a boyhood Arsenal fan, would hope for just that.

Yash Bisht

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