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What are we going to do about Gabriel Martinelli?

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo Morning folks, hope we’re all good today?

I got too focused on Gabriel Jesus’ omission from the Champions League squad yesterday to talk about the topic I actually wanted to zoom in on yesterday, but the good thing about international breaks is that there’s always tomorrow to be able to spill over one’s thoughts.

So, what are we going to go about Gabriel Martinelli, eh?

If you put that kind of message on social media you’re likely to get flippant, unhelpful, one/two/three-word responses like “sell him”, “bin him off”, “bench him forever” or even just emoji’s. But the reality is that with the transfer window closed and with rumours of Leandro Trossard being the subject of a £19million bid from Besiktas, the discussion about what practically can be done with Martinelli should be had in what I believe is a constructive and sensible manner. So let’s you and I do that today, eh?

Firstly, I think if you’re getting an offer of £19million for Trossard from Turkey, you probably have to take it. He’s 30 years old, he has two years left on his current deal and that’s not bad money to be had for a player who has served us well, who most of us like, who admittedly can seem grumpy at times but at least has contributed and been a good player for us. He’ll most likely get to be the main man out there, he’ll probably bag a ton of goals and we get some more cash to add to the Net Spend FC graphs that Sky Sports and other media are now hell bent on showing every five minutes to justify Liverpool’s cause (standard).

There’s also the fact that this – if true – is an ‘actual’ bid for one of our attackers. We all know we probably need to sell given our financial outlay this summer and whilst I totally get it that we have Saka and Kai out and that there is an argument that we could probably do with keeping Trossard for coverage, they will be back within weeks and probably just a month or so for Kai, so I think we’re going to quickly find ourselves with unhappy players in the squad. That’s not a healthy balance and so the sale of Trossard would make sense – again, if the news coming from Turkey is real, that is.

“Why don’t we sell Martinelli to Saudi or something for more money?” is one argument. But as I heard on one pod a week or so ago, there has beenliterallyno noises all summer about that. You can’t just manifest up a club buying Martinelli for £60million. Even the Saudi money that comes out normally has a little rumblings of something before it actually happens, like Darwin Nunez earlier this summer. So if we can’t sell Martinelli (I’m not sure we even should), then my question remains a valid one:

What are we going to do about him?

I think most of us agree that he probably needs to be pulled from the current side. His form is in the crapper at the moment. It started in pre season, we all watched it, mostly willing him to pick up some semblance of a 2022/23 Martinelli. But it never emerged, he started at Old Trafford and ran down some blind alleys, was dropped for Leeds at home, then did another blind alleys session against Liverpool. So I think most people agree he needs to be taken out of the firing line and with Eze arriving and with Noni performing well on the right hand side last weekend, there is an immediate solution which means we don’t have to worry. But Eze and Noni cannot play all of the time. When Saka comes back he will assume his normal position, which hopefully he can stay in for some time, then you have Eze and Noni who can also play on the left. But do we really want to tank Martinelli’s value by not seeing him again?

I don’t think so. I think if we’re looking at retaining Martinelli’s value somewhat, we need two things to happen:

He gets game time this season

He recaptures at least some form

To me that means he’s going to need to play matches. Last season Darwin Nunez played 47 times across 2,000 minutes. He scored seven goals and seven assists. Towards the end of the season that looked like this:

29 minutes against Palace

27 minutes against Brighton

23 minutes against Arsenal

32 minutes against Chelsea

7 minutes against the Scum

zero minutes against Leicester

Not in the squad against West Ham

23 minutes against Fulham

15 minutes against Everton

68 minutes against Southampton

Nunez became an impact sub for Liverpool and in 2025 from January to May started just one game for them in the league. Do you know what that tells me?

The role of an impact sub can give a player enough minutes

Maybe that’s just what we need to look at Martinelli as from now on? Unless he picks up some kind of mega kick in form, we have to use him as a rotation option, able to come on when defences are tired. Maybe if we’re winning in a big game and we need somebody to provide more of a defensive solidity at the back, he can do that. Think about the impact he had running at a Real Madrid side who were attacking us last season. Remember the goal he scored against Villa where it was him sprinting away and then walking the ball into an empty net because the ‘keeper had gone up for the corner? Or a couple of season’ back away at Brighton in which he was able to latch on to an Odegaard ball to go one-on-one versus the ‘keeper. That feels like a role Martinelli can have in a team. For most games we come up against mid or low block teams. For those matches you have players with guile or one-v-one drive to beat their man and get their head up. That is Eze. That is Madueke. That is Saka. Heck, if we need to, that should be Gabriel Jesus too. But Martinelli needs to have his role in the team redefined. He is no longer the defacto left wing choice. He has to live with that and be happy with that. If he does, I think we still have a space for him this season to add value to this team, and I think we’ll be better with him as an option from the bench.

What do you reckon?

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.