Noni Madueke: There Is No Knee To Be Upset

[Trilly]

It took him a while to get out of that funk, too, completely crashed out at Trabzonspor, couldn't break into their starting lineup. Villarreal brought him back to life.

When people try to justify his mistreatment here by pointing to the turkey stint it just makes me laugh, we completely destroyed his confidence as a player and then sent him to whoever would take him. He's doing relatively well playing at a higher level so good for him.

We'd have been better off keeping him as a squad player all this time, he'd have renewed for whatver we offered him and is clear of Madueke imo.

 

[Rex Caudillo]

Two things worked against him here. The fee firstly raised expectations that we’d be getting an Alexis level player.

Then the other aspect was he wasn’t amazing off the ball which was never going to work with Arteta. Game nowadays puts more value in Noni who at least nominally tracks back most of the time.

 

[MartiSaka]

Two things worked against him here. The fee firstly raised expectations that we’d be getting an Alexis level player.

Then the other aspect was he wasn’t amazing off the ball which was never going to work with Arteta. Game nowadays puts more value in Noni who at least nominally tracks back most of the time.

Agree. It was the non-negoitables that killed him with Arteta i.e. (i) off the ball defensive work and (ii) maybe his ability to recycle possession, he was trying things and kept losing it.

He was and still is a far more talented attacking player than what we are seeing from a majority of our attackers in this squad. But Mik doesn't care about those aspects of an attacker's game if he isn't satisfied with the non-negoitables.

 

[Trilly]

Two things worked against him here. The fee firstly raised expectations that we’d be getting an Alexis level player.

Then the other aspect was he wasn’t amazing off the ball which was never going to work with Arteta. Game nowadays puts more value in Noni who at least nominally tracks back most of the time.

I feel like Pepe would have tracked back seeing everyone else do the same. It just takes certain players a longer time to build the engine required to do so, like Eze (still a work in progress) and Trossard. He didn't seem like a stubborn type.

You're 100% right about the expectations though, it didn't help he was part of a contigent that Mikel wanted to 'destroy' and lastly like @MartiSaka said, the worst thing you can be in an Arteta team is a forward that tries things and loses the ball.

 

[Rex Caudillo]

I feel like Pepe would have tracked back seeing everyone else do the same. It just takes certain players a longer time to build the engine required to do so, like Eze (still a work in progress) and Trossard. He didn't seem like a stubborn type.

You're 100% right about the expectations though, it didn't help he was part of a contigent that Mikel wanted to 'destroy' and lastly like @MartiSaka said, the worst thing you can be in an Arteta team is a forward that tries things and loses the ball.

I always wanted Wilf and think he was what we were missing. The problem we had with Pepe was he didn’t create off the dribble and was more of a final third player.

Zaha to me would’ve worked really well with Auba. The timeline gets bumped up with him and maybe even could’ve seen Emery through to the end of 2019/20.

 

[ragnarock]

Seeing this reminding me that Noni is unfortunately more Gervinho than Pepe

 

[High Elbow]

You're 100% right about the expectations though, it didn't help he was part of a contigent that Mikel wanted to 'destroy' and lastly like @MartiSaka said, the worst thing you can be in an Arteta team is a forward that tries things and loses the ball.

Sometimes it feels like all martinelli, gyokeres, trossard, madueke do is lose the ball

 

[grange]

Isn't he still injured? I'm not even going to pile on him anymore. I forgot he came back in a knee wrap. Manager's fault.

 

[Trilly]

Sometimes it feels like all martinelli, gyokeres, trossard, madueke do is lose the ball

Yeah but that’s just from being sh*t not trying things.

That’s okay I guess

 

[squallman]

Please sell him after he scores a goal in the World Cup.

Please, please don't try to rehab this guy, then we end up with Jesus 2.0, big player we can't sell because we waited too long.

Who am I kidding? Noni will probably be here longer than Saka the way this club operates.

 

[High Elbow]

Yeah but that’s just from being sh*t not trying things.

That’s okay I guess

Thats the irony of arteta's team...scared to take risks in midfield in case of turnovers but raya has the licence ro risk it all in his own 6 yard box trying to play it out, scared of skillful 'flair' players coz they might lose the ball even though our current group of attackers can't help but lose it constantly. I knew arteta was weird when he tried so hard to make willian work in contrast to how he treated pepe

 

[Tourbillion]

I always wanted Wilf and think he was what we were missing. The problem we had with Pepe was he didn’t create off the dribble and was more of a final third player.

Zaha to me would’ve worked really well with Auba. The timeline gets bumped up with him and maybe even could’ve seen Emery through to the end of 2019/20.

What do you mean by off the dribble?

 

[A_G]

What do you mean by off the dribble?

Running at players

 

[lomekian]

Agree. It was the non-negoitables that killed him with Arteta i.e. (i) off the ball defensive work and (ii) maybe his ability to recycle possession, he was trying things and kept losing it.

He was and still is a far more talented attacking player than what we are seeing from a majority of our attackers in this squad. But Mik doesn't care about those aspects of an attacker's game if he isn't satisfied with the non-negoitables.

Agree talent wise. When he had his couple of short purple patches he was fantastic...the problem was he was pretty open about not seeing the point of tracking back, which won't get you far with Arteta. With his defensive disinterest and propensity for coughing up possession cheaply, he would have needed to be at that peak form level pretty much all the time in order to keep his place as a starter.

How we could do with someone as calm and cold in front of goal these days. That said, I'm not convinced he'd do well against the dirty deep blocks we see 80% of the domestic games we play these days.

 

[Topside]

Pepe was an interesting player, some very sweet left footed strikes.

His problem was before Arteta, Emery didn't want him, wanted Zaha we low balled one bid or two and that was it.

See a name pop up earlier on this page and we would of ruined the PL this season with him in our team, Alexis. Just an exciting player, pressed like a demon and no doubt winners mentality.

 

[RunTheTrap]

It's never a good sign when you believe you're more intelligent than the people running the club, but how did the higher-ups not see this coming? He's bad, injury-prone, lazy and likely puts an end to Nwaneri’s Arsenal career. £52 million for Noni is worse than £72 million for Pepe. It's not up for debate. Pepe, while flawed, delivered better numbers in a worse team. It's baffling that we let this happen.

 

[Rasmi]

It's never a good sign when you believe you're more intelligent than the people running the club, but how did the higher-ups not see this coming? He's bad, injury-prone, lazy and likely puts an end to Nwaneri’s Arsenal career. £52 million for Noni is worse than £72 million for Pepe. It's not up for debate. Pepe, while flawed, delivered better numbers in a worse team. It's baffling that we let this happen.

Doubt the club scouted him and scouts suggested him. This was most likely a request by the manager and he gets what he wants

 

[A_G]

Doubt the club scouted him and scouts suggested him. This was most likely a request by the manager and he gets what he wants

I could almost understand it if we had been linked with him at PSV, but we weren’t. So what did Arteta see at Chelsea in the previous two years to sway him?

 

[Rasmi]

I could almost understand it if we had been linked with him at PSV, but we weren’t. So what did Arteta see at Chelsea in the previous two years to sway him?

He did have few interesting runs against us when we played 1-1 the previous season before we signed him as a right winger. Either way there should have been mechanisms that stops a manager taking to liking a player and insisting on signing him when no one rates him. The fact we had no competition for him and they made 60% profit on a bench player is unbelievable

 

[2Smokeyy]

It's never a good sign when you believe you're more intelligent than the people running the club, but how did the higher-ups not see this coming? He's bad, injury-prone, lazy and likely puts an end to Nwaneri’s Arsenal career. £52 million for Noni is worse than £72 million for Pepe. It's not up for debate. Pepe, while flawed, delivered better numbers in a worse team. It's baffling that we let this happen.

This is what happens when you strip it down to such a narrow filter + get bamboozled by metrics ignoring the obvious red flags your eyes are showing you. It’s funny how predictable the club are these days lol months before the links even started, I joked that we’d do it and we did

For me, everything reverts back to the manager. We’re missing out on top talents in Europe because he struggles to manage big personalities and fears the impact it’ll have on the rest of the squad - this has been my gripe for years. Let’s be real, would he have ever signed Cherki? No chance. Neither would I want him at the club whilst he’s here.