Edward Nketiah has come up through the ranks at Arsenal and the youngster is really grabbing some eyeballs during the club’s pre-season.
Edward Nketiah scored a brace during Arsenal’s last pre-season match vs Fiorentina following which Unai Emery was full praise for the youngster.
Last season, the 20-year-old played in only five Premier League games scoring one goal but Unai Emery has hinted that he could receive a significant amount of game time this campaign.
“I’m really happy. Last season in small moments when we could give him chances to be on the pitch, he did very well. I can confirm his progress and we want this progress with every player.” Emery said about Edward Nketiah.
“Last year in December we were thinking of loaning him to Germany. We decided he would stay with us to train and progress with us.
“We started this pre-season with the same idea as we finished last year – stay with us. And my idea is that if you progress like we are seeing from you, you can have a chance here for us.
“I spoke with him and with the club. He has started with a doubt if it is better for him to stay here with us or leave to play more minutes with another team.”
“But we have examples last year of some players who wanted to go away and didn’t play all we wanted. I said to him to first be focused here.
“If you earn the right to be with us it’s because I can promise you that you are going to have minutes.
“But in those minutes you need to learn. And in the pre-season at the moment he’s playing like we want. The young players who are here, this is the moment for them to show how we can use them to help us in the season.”
Edward Nketiah is a prolific goal-scorer as he managed to bag nine goals in just 10 games in the Premier League 2 last season.
And it is pretty evident by Unai Emery’s statement that the centre-forward is likely to play a crucial role for the Gunners during the 2019-20 campaign.
