Martinelli Out?

The only player left at Arsenal with some flair, is being offered to the Turkish side for a 45m fee. Martinelli’s camp has rejected it saying he doesn’t like it and the club either needs to find a better destination for him or he would prefer to stay. But, I’m fuming mate, and there are a lot of reasons for it.

Gabriel Martinelli joined us from Ituano in 2019, when he was a kid. He scored 3 goals in his first season in 14 games. He scored 2 and assisted 1 in the same number of games for the next season as well. 2021-22 was a breakthrough, he played 29 games and scored 6 while assisting another 6 for us. The 22-23 season was even better when he scored 15 goals (more than what Gyokeres has done) and assisted another 5. The next 2 seasons were average for him with 6/4 and 8/4 goals and asists.

Last season was one of the worst in performance from him, only 1 goal and 4 assists overall in 30 games but most of these performances were substitutions. You might think someone with that output shouldn’t even fetch a 45m fee, but there’re three things working against him.

First, Mikel Arteta’s reliance on the right side of the pitch to attack – How often do you see Saka surrounded by 3 defenders and searching for Odegaard or Gyokeres/Havertz to get out of that situation? Martinelli doesn’t have a creator behind him like Odegaard and the team usually prefers or are instructed to play on the right side of the pitch.

Second, Martinelli is instructed to hug the sideline – if you read my post history, I have been complaining about Martinelli hugging the sideline and not moving centrally like Saka does. I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t want to. He has a striker instinct, and he would love to move centrally once in a while to score some like he did in the 2022-23 season. You are not going to see him score goals, if he is not allowed to go in the box.

Third, he is a yes man – he will run the length of the pitch to defend but then again, you can’t score goals if you are doing the defending. He is not Bukayo, he is the Sadio Mane or Mo Salah of Klopp’s system, and he needs freedom and confidence to take the ball and shoot. He will do what you say, but you should be asking him to beat a couple of players and score goals. We have messed up his football, and the confidence.

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Can we fix this now? No. You can’t just ask a player to leave, accept offers from Galatsaray and expect him to stay and fight for you. I would hate to see him go but it’s for his own good. This system of robotic players who like to read instructions more than playing football doesn’t suit him and we have wasted a talent Klopp said ‘the talent of the century, an incredible striker’.

So yeah, lets sell him for 45m and add another 45m on top of it to get a player who can recycle the ball for 150th time in his 90 minutes. I was under the impression that Arteta would be brave now, after winning the trophy and would try to work on the football aspect of football, but I was so wrong man. There would be another robotic and Madueke-esque addition before the transfer window closes.

I can also guarantee he would turn out to be another Martinelli because we will stick to the attack from the right side, and the LW won’t get a benefit of Odegaard behind him.

Bollocks.