On how Eberechi Eze can make the difference when the Gunners most need a hero to step forward.
The funny thing is, I knew the goal was imminent. And I don’t mean that the way a fan of a team means it when their side has penned their opponents in their own third for the last twenty minutes. I literally had been informed the goal was about to happen. I’d made a mistake I’ve made so many times before and promised myself just as many times I wouldn’t make again: I’d opened Twitter at an inopportune moment during a match.
We used to be civilized. We used to sit down and watch a game for the entirety of the ninety minutes plus stoppage time without needing to hold a second screen in front of our faces. I don’t remember when exactly, it’s been so long since that golden age of healthy attention spans. But it did occur at some point in my lifetime, of that I’m certain.
So when I saw Charles Watts exclaim, “EZE!” on my timeline just ahead of James Benge more reservedly noting, “1-0, Eze,” I knew what was coming. And I accepted that I had squandered the magic of the moment. After all, it was my own damn fault. If I hadn’t been so keen on that sweet, sweet dopamine hit from my notifications tab, if i’d remembered that Paramount+ is always a minute or so behind the live events at the ground and that I followed plenty of people who were always at the ground, I would have remained blissfully unaware of what was about to unfold. This was on me.
And yet, when Eberechi Eze smashed in his thunderous opener against Bayer Leverkusen I could not help but blurt out, “Wow!” at the top of my lungs like a six-year-old who’d just seen a great white shark for the first time at the aquarium. Even with advance notice, it was a display of otherworldly quality that beggared belief. Perhaps that is the mark of a truly gifted attacker — their exploits can be described to you in explicit detail, but words alone won’t do them justice, won’t amaze you the way seeing them with your own two eyes will.
I want to be careful not to rewrite history here. Eze’s opening act in the story of his time playing for his boyhood club was not free of doubt and difficulty. Among a collection of strictly regimented footballers overseen by Mikel Arteta, the Englishman often struggled to make his presence known on the ball. Out of possession, he was often a liability. Even alongside a “lighthouse” player in Declan Rice and Arsenal’s North Star in Bukayo Saka, Eze appeared lost at sea for much of his first few months as a Gunner.
There were safe harbors along the way, of course. Eze’s hat trick in his first North London Derby will be talked about for generations to come. But his lapse in concentration to allow Matty Cash to score during Arsenal’s loss at Aston Villa threatened to define him in the long term. Often, it felt as though he was more of a backup for Martin Ødegaard than an actual starter in his own right. Fortunately for Eze’s playing time, Ødegaard has spent much of this season on the treatment table.
However, things appeared to finally click just over two months ago. Following Arsenal’s second 4-1 victory over Spurs of the season, Arteta stated that Eze had been upset with him about not starting at Wolves in the Gunners’ previous league fixture. The former Crystal Palace man made his point by bagging a brace in his second North London Derby, eliciting the following quote from the manager:
“I could see that he wanted to prove something. He was upset, even with me, because I didn’t play him the other day. I’m starting to understand how to get the best out of him now.”
From that point on, we’ve seen a different Eze. The man wearing no. 10 for Arsenal now radiates confidence and authority. He’s doing more interviews and coolly stating that he doesn’t care what others think of his team, including the members of the media holding a microphone in front of his face.
Oh, and he’s scoring bangers. Important ones.
On March 7, Eze replaced Leandro Trossard in the 63rd minute at Mansfield Town. What perhaps should have been a more straightforward FA Cup time was in the balance as the Englishman took the pitch. Four minutes later, Eze received the ball at the top of the hosts’ box and walloped in a winner for the Gunners.
Last weekend, Arsenal took three short corner routines in the opening ten minutes of their critical home game against Newcastle. These routines seemed specifically engineered to get someone — most likely Eze — shots at the top of the Magpies’ box. The Englishman tried a shot on his left foot following the second corner that went just wide. The third short corner was also played to Eze, who this time curled a gorgeous strike into the far side of Nick Pope’s net to give Arsenal the lead. 88 grueling minutes later, the goal proved to be the winner.
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Even during Eze’s period of adaptation to his new surroundings, he produced critical moments of quality. His acrobatic jump kick goal against his former club in October was the match’s only entry on the scoresheet. Against Nottingham Forest, Eze played a lovely ball across the face of goal for Viktor Gyökeres to make it 2-0 to the Gunners. His perfect chipped ball over the top for Gabriel Martinelli helped save Arsenal a point when Manchester City came to the Emirates Stadium early in the season. Another such assist for Martinelli secured a highly impressive win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
At the time of writing, Eze boasts ten goals and six assists in all competitions. Half of his goal contributions have resulted in changes of game state, meaning that Arsenal have either gone level or taken the lead from those contributions. Another 25 percent of Eze’s goal contributions have resulted in the embarrassment of Tottenham Hotspur, which I think should count for something as well. When Eze produces in the final third, odds are quite good that his side needed someone to step up.
And there are instances when Eze has come close to further boosting those numbers and accountability in key junctures. The one that immediately comes to mind occurred at the Etihad Stadium two weekends ago, when the Arsenal man worked some space at the top of City’s box and clanged a left-footed shot off the inside of the post as Gianluigi Donnarumma watch on helplessly. On another day, fortune favors Arsenal and the ball goes in to give them a 2-1 lead which they perhaps hold onto for a season-changing win. Sadly, that did not occur in the timeline we inhabit.
Arsenal are a team that are historically synonymous with iconic attacking talent. The last two decades have seen the likes of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Robin van Persie, Santi Cazorla, Alexis Sánchez, Mesut Özil, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang don the club’s red and white. But in recent seasons, only Saka has truly demonstrated a consistent capability of serving as an offensive difference-maker for the Gunners. The rest have functioned more as system players, for lack of a better term; they stick to Arsenal’s general attacking game plan and rarely demonstrate much in the way of individuality. And this season, Saka has been for the most part nullified by injury.
But in his countryman’s stead, Eze has emerged as another player in the Arsenal squad who is consistently willing to grab a match by the scruff of the neck and serve as a genuine gamebreaker. And the thing is, this doesn’t entail dictating proceedings by getting on the ball as much as possible. He isn’t pulling the strings for Arsenal in the final third the way Ødegaard or Saka might. In fact, Eze can be quite peripheral at times; in 53 minutes against Newcastle, he managed only 18 touches. Ødegaard had 71, albeit with nearly twice the time on the pitch in that game.
Eze’s superpower is his ability to generate match-winning actions of elite quality, the kind that can steal you a result even when you don’t deserve it (as was the case on Saturday). And he has the efficiency to achieve this even with limited involvement. He doesn’t dozens of touches; just a few tries over the course of the match are typically enough for Eze to affect proceedings positively. Because if he spots a run he likes or finds himself in half a yard of space in Zone 14, he will let fly. And he has the quality in both legs to make it count.
He’s exactly the kind of “moments” player for which Arsenal have been crying out for years, the kind that clubs like Bayern Munich, PSG, and now City rely on to propel them into the highest echelon of European clubs. These are the footballers that can win you trophies, that can tilt even narrow margins in your favor when the stakes are at their highest. We’ve seen it before from Eze — after all, it was he who orchestrated Crystal Palace’s FA Cup and Community Shield triumphs over City and Liverpool respectively.
Of course, we’ve known this about Eze for quite some time now. What we didn’t know is just how much Arsenal would need him this season.
The Gunners’ game plan under Arteta in recent seasons has always been straightforward: rack up xG by playing up the wings and firing the ball into the box through crosses or cutbacks, supplement a lack of attacking ingenuity with the finest set piece prowess in football, and rely on one of the best back fives in the world to stifle opposing offenses in the meantime. But for much of this season, Arsenal have failed to dominate games in such customary fashion. In recent weeks, their successful outings have involved nicking a goal where they can and leaning on their defense to grind out results. If anything, the loss at City is an outlier in that Arsenal demonstrated the most attacking fluency we’ve seen from them in months.
Unfortunately, not only does that offensive competency in Manchester seem to have been fleeting, but it’s increasingly hard to tell where even a single goal from Arsenal would come from right now. Saka is still returning to full fitness while Kai Havertz looks set to at least miss the coming match or two. Ødegaard, while still a consistent chance creator, does not threaten the opponents’ goal anywhere near often enough to be a reliable factor. Viktor Gyökeres, despite being the current top scorer on the season, is as likely to not manage a single shot on target as he is to impact a game. Leandro Trossard has yet to score in 2026. Martinelli’s only goal in the Premier League came in September while Noni Madueke has been inconsistent at best. And Gabriel Jesus is a shadow of what he once was. Even Arsenal’s set piece goals have dried up at the moment.
Now more than ever, the Gunners require a maverick in the final third. Eze is the best candidate for taking up that mantle by a country mile. Behind him are stalwarts like Rice, William Saliba, Gabriel, and David Raya. It isn’t hard to imagine a path to glory in which the Arsenal no. 10 fishes out a few moments of magic for his teammates to defend see out results. That was essentially the blueprint for the win against Newcastle. Although admittedly, one would prefer for Arteta’s men to achieve silverware in a less anxiety-inducing matter.
But this is the time of the season when moments can define your entire campaign. Arsenal’s remaining games in the Champions League will come down to moments. So will their final Premier League matches if they continue struggling to control them. Eze, in crunch time for the club he has supported his whole life, could very well be the player to come up with those moments. I can’t help but wonder how different the Carabao Cup final would have been if Eze had been available. But if Eze can stay fit and keep trying the spectacular, keep producing important moments of quality, that hopefully will be the only thing worth looking back on ruefully in a month’s time.
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