{"id":86328,"date":"2025-07-23T16:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86328\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T16:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:11:10","slug":"ethan-nwaneris-ac-milan-display-proves-mikel-arteta-suddenly-has-a-huge-problem-at-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86328\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethan Nwaneri\u2019s AC Milan display proves Mikel Arteta suddenly has a huge problem at Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite joining up late for Arsenal pre-season, Mikel Arteta opted to start Ethan Nwaneri immediately against AC Milan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a> kicked off their pre-season fixtures against the famous Italian side in Singapore, and Mikel Arteta<\/a> named a very strong team from the start.<\/p>\n

Ethan Nwaneri<\/a> was in the Martin Odegaard<\/a> role on the right of the midfield, with new signing Christian Norgaard as the six, and Declan Rice as the left-sided eight.<\/p>\n

Rice was marauding around the middle of the park in familiar fashion for Arsenal, and as the first half went on, Nwaneri really started to find his feet as well.<\/p>\n

And after skinning AC Milan defender Strahinja Pavlovic by the left touchline in the 20th minute, Nwaneri then sprung into life.<\/p>\n

Ethan Nwaneri stars for Arsenal against AC Milan in pre-season friendly<\/p>\n

Nwaneri was causing a ton of problems for AC Milan and he called goalkeeper Pietro Terracciano into a very good save after a very sharp turn.<\/p>\n

And if Nwaneri\u2019s 45 minutes were an audition to replace Odegaard next season, he would have got the job.<\/p>\n

\"EthanPhoto by Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/strong>: Mikel Merino thinks Mikel Arteta has just made one \u2018really smart\u2019 signing at Arsenal<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s not necessarily why Arteta gave Nwaneri a chance from the start \u2014 he\u2019ll still be counting on his club captain to start the vast majority of games next season.<\/p>\n

But following TBR Football<\/strong> sharing that Arteta assured Nwaneri he\u2019ll get chances as a 10<\/a> in recent contract talks, the Spaniard might have a big problem on his hands, albeit quite a positive one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nwaneri proved in his minutes against Milan that he\u2019s simply too good to be a substitute for Arsenal, even if he is only 18 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Arsene Wenger has said about Nwaneri<\/a> before, he\u2019s a special, special talent, and Arteta somehow needs to find a way to start both him and Odegaard, if that\u2019s even possible in the same team.<\/p>\n

Ben White also makes a real statement to Mikel Arteta against AC Milan<\/p>\n

In addition to Nwaneri on the right of Arsenal\u2019s midfield three, Ben White was excellent at right-back against Milan.<\/p>\n

Some now feel as if White has lost his starting spot to Jurrien Timber when everyone is fit.<\/p>\n

White missed a large chunk of last season owing to injury, and Timber really stepped up whilst the England international was missing.<\/p>\n

Therefore, White will need to fight for his spot at Arsenal<\/a>, and on first viewing in pre-season, he looks very well-equipped to do so.<\/p>\n

Clearly there are a ton of positive problems for Arteta right now, even if he might also endure some sleepless nights over the season debating some tough selection calls. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite joining up late for Arsenal pre-season, Mikel Arteta opted to start Ethan Nwaneri immediately against AC Milan.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":86329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[5407,6649,22020,58279,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-86328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-english-premier-league","10":"tag-ethan-nwaneri","11":"tag-martin-odegaard","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114903429018516464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}