Scouting Noni Madueke
An extensive profile on Arsenal’s newest winger: profiling his directness, strengths, tactical fit (LW/RW), self-belief, lingering questions, and what problems he solves for Arsenal
https://billycarpenter.substack.com/p/scouting-noni-madueke
Self-belief has another name.
“You’re not gonna go on the pitch and play Messi, and in your head be like, ‘Oh, this guy’s so much better than me.’ You have to have a little bit of healthy delusion,” Noni Madueke told GQ. “When that delusion comes in, we’re calling it healthy delusion, but it’s probably extreme faith in your ability, I feel like that’s when you can really reach new heights.”
Madueke’s journey to PSV at 16 often gets framed as a wild bet. He was asked about it in every interview I watched, to degrees he probably found tiring. But if you listen, he doesn’t flinch or overplay it as some triumphant origin story.
“It wasn’t difficult … because I was clear in what I wanted,” he told The Guardian. “Football is football,” as he’s often said. He wasn’t making some cultural statement: he just wanted first-team football, quickly.
The PSV connection was made during a youth tournament. Madueke was leading a Spurs team (😬) that lost (😏) to the Dutch side in the semis. He missed a penalty, but also scored.
During the match, Madueke’s dad, Ifeanyi, was chatting with the father of Ian Maatsen, who was playing for PSV at the time. When Maatsen’s dad understood the Madueke curiosity about PSV had teeth, he walked to the coaches and told them to keep an eye on the teenager. Noni himself, meanwhile, was impressed by their technical and physical level, and saw PSV as a place where he could break into senior football quickly. In another case of football’s endless sliding doors, Madueke then signed for the Boeren — but Maatsen went to Chelsea, returning to London before the pair could play together.
PSV hailed the signing of a “creative, physically strong left-footed midfielder.”
Looking back on that time, Madueke’s tone is businesslike.
“I always say to everybody… I didn't have an adaptation period. I didn't need to adjust,” said Madueke with a shrug. “I feel like I was just coming here for a job, to get the job done.”
That clarity masked how hard it probably was: a London teenager dropping into Eindhoven (population 235,000), missing Nando’s, learning the language quickly and for a specific reason. “I didn't want anyone talking shit about me on the field,” he said with a grin. “Like, ‘I know exactly what you're saying!’”
Source: Arsenal.com
In interviews, you can pick up remnants of a few different places in Madueke’s personality. The most dominant is the kid from North London: lover of fashion, plainly ambitious, a self-described “showman,” smiling and enmeshed in culture. “When I go shopping, on the pitch, around my friends and family, I’m that type of person,” he said. “That is just my personality.”
In another is a homebody, someone shaped by a close-knit family, faith, and Nigerian roots. “My parents both came to England when they were young, did school here and met here. They have good values and good morals. They try and be good people. They definitely imprinted that on me.”
But there’s also something direct, pragmatic, and unbothered about him, perhaps influenced (or merely reinforced) by his time in a country where speaking plainly isn’t just appreciated, but culturally embedded. (PSV are Max Verstappen’s home club, remember.)
His words are precise and flow in paragraphs, and he has no problem with matter-of-factness. Asked about a midseason move to Chelsea, he didn’t spin.
You’ll see this disarming quality in his talks about his performances (“I wasn’t really doing that well,” he said about his first three months at PSV), his ambitions (“I was just thinking if I jump the queue I’ll be better than all my peers,” he said about the PSV move), and his self-image (“footballers should be encouraged not to have that robotic feel to them,” he said). He can be vibey in unexpected ways; Enzo Maresca said “he can do much more. The moment he starts to score or assist and is happy, he starts to drop a little bit.”
Tina Fey once said that “authenticity is dangerous and expensive.” Last season, when Madueke arrived in Wolverhampton, he instagrammed “this place is shit” before deleting it and conveying his apologies. Then he dropped a hat-trick and went home.
What he has done, over and over, is bet on himself. At 15, in a journey that led him through the academies of Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur, and an offer from Manchester United, he said he just knew. “I thought it was impossible that I would not be a professional footballer,” he said. “I wouldn’t allow myself not to.”
After that initial adjustment period, things clicked in Eindhoven. While there were regular interruptions for injury (which we’ll get to later), and his play definitely had some growing pains, his underlying statistics popped.
Check the shots, carries, and take-ons he logged as a 19-year-old.
Those performances earned him a move to Chelsea. After all, he was a living, breathing, talented footballer between the ages of 16 and 25, available between €0-€150m, so he fit their search criteria perfectly.
It has not been easy. Despite arriving for a non-trivial sum of £29m, he initially had no designated space in the dressing room, and would change in the corridor. He had four coaches in his first 18 months, and the club kept signing winger after winger. When asked about the endless barrage of signings in his position, he gave a quote that may feel applicable today.
“I believe in my ability,” he said. “We’ve got a great team full of great players who can play in different positions. It’s always good to have a team like that and on my part, I try to do my best and see what happens. Competition happens at top clubs all the time. It is what it is.”
“It has been hard for him,” said his personal coach, Saul Isaksson-Hurst. “He proves himself to one manager, and then another one comes in and he has to start again. But he is not fazed by it.”
“I have never met a more hard-working player than Noni,” he expanded later. “Lots of people have said other things, but he is so driven. We often go away for four, five days for intense training camps and I almost have to force him to have a day off because he just wants to train. He wants to be one of the best players in world football.”
This Chelsea period has led to serious, linear improvement, regular starts, and (generally) good health. Despite all the options at Maresca’s disposal, Madueke stubbornly managed 27 league starts last year.
Now he’s 23, has two-and-a-half Premier League seasons under his belt, has played in Europe, has seven caps for England, and still carries the self-belief that painted his early years.
“I always had a mad love of the game,” he said. The kind that leads you to endlessly shoot alone against a wall, fly to Eindhoven to skip the queue, and walk into a new team already thinking about how to break it open.
This mindset has now led him to make another bold decision: he left an improving side that, by Maresca’s own account, did not want him to go. It was time to bet on himself again.
Source: Arsenal.com
Now he joins Arsenal, who dearly need attacking fortifications, but where Bukayo Saka is entrenched as a starter. Without a locked-down starting role, the story is likely to have some twists and turns, and one thing is for sure: he’ll need more of that “healthy delusion.” The move triggered the grinding wheels of the Twitter Nonsense Machine, but let’s not give the idiots more of what they crave.
Here we stand. Madueke is undeniably talented, yet hotly debated. Mikel Arteta has made the bold estimation that he can be a real solution to Arsenal’s attacking problems. What guided this decision? Was it wishful thinking, “healthy delusion,” or a brilliant bet on a budding superstar?
For all his layers, Madueke’s mindset is simple.
“Be yourself, he said. “And I’m sure that way people will warm to you.”
📖 Player overview
➡️ Physical qualities
We’ll start, as we often do, with the physical.
Now 23, Madueke never had an uphill climb to adjust to the senior game from a strength, speed, and balance perspective. He stands 6’0” and is lean but strong, and has added a little bit of bulk to his wiry frame since joining the league.
My predominant mental image is of him receiving in the middle third, barging through a mini-duel, and dragging possession up the pitch with a carry.
Contact has never particularly bothered him, going back to his early days at PSV.
He has a fairly unique gait: he’s an upright runner, and his feet face outwards, often giving an impression of slight bowleggedness.
As we’ve covered elsewhere, instant acceleration might be the most important physical quality to look for in a winger, and Madueke’s bursts off the mark are exceptional. He is explosive from a standstill and can gain the advantage on a defender in an instant. This helps him generate that crucial bit of separation, which he uses to either begin his power-carries or to get shots off.
It’s also helpful for give-and-goes, when he dishes the ball and then disappears behind the defender’s back.
His pace over longer distances is impressive, but more in tier 1B instead of 1A: he’s more Raphinha than Mbappé. He nonetheless can use his quick darts to run in behind, and defenders have trouble catching up from there. Assuredly, part of the appeal to Arteta is his potential to double up on some of Martinelli’s qualities as a runner.
His agility, likewise, is awfully nice, but his more upright frame doesn’t enable that final tier of wiggly, sharp, direction-changing 1v1 nimbleness that you see from a Doku.
Dribbles and carries are always intertwined, but the line between the two is especially blurry for Madueke: he’s bearing down on you, forcing reactions, “tilting” left and right, at speed.
Outside of his instant acceleration, his most impressive quality is his strength and balance. He’s got a strong back, stronger shoulders, and is adept at the tight-space wrestling for leverage.
Those who look to interrupt his carries usually leave empty-footed. For all his responsibility (lots of advanced touches, lots of carries into the penalty area, lots of take-ons), he only gets dispossessed 1.11 times per 90. He doesn’t even draw a lot of fouls; he often gets bumped and keeps going. I like that, for the record, because I’m grumpy about how interrupted Arsenal games are (and how randomness gets a higher weight in the game’s final equation, as a result).
His level of defensive intensity previously had a lot of, shall we say, variance to it. It fluctuated more at PSV, where Roger Schmidt helped improve his defensive play, but it was especially true when he joined the league. He could be a real passenger. The charitable explanation is that he was perhaps managing himself in fear of the injury setbacks he’d experienced previously. The modern game is increasingly cruel to such types, and Chelsea had too many of them to sustain.
Especially in the last year, Madueke has stepped up his out-of-possession game considerably. This was him just a few weeks ago at the Club World Cup.
He now actually works at the exact pace I’d like a winger to, at least: he blocks lanes, snaps into action with ferocity when the time comes, and is greedy about turning ball-wins into transitions; but if the ball is on the other side of the pitch, he doesn’t do anything performative. He visibly walks and rests his legs (he’s one of the highest walkers in the league). When closing down, he’s still missing a few details with angles and reactions, but his out-of-possession work is certainly on the up, and potentially transforming into a real strength. Arteta would still like him to kick it up a final notch, and will likely use playtime as the dangling carrot.
His attacking intensity is nice. He goes hard, makes runs, and can carry again and again with little dip in quality.
📖 Statistical background
You’ll see there are some pretty clear takeaways from his statistical profile:
Madueke took 3.54 shots per 90, which is the highest out of all wingers in the league.
He averaged the most progressive carries out of players with more than 20+ 90s.
He is the best player at turning carries into shots in the league.
His pure take-on (i.e. dribbling) stats are in the 75th-84th percentile of wingers, which matches the eye test: good, not perfect.
His playmaking stats (key passes, passes into the pen) range from below-average to average.
He underperformed his xG fairly significantly last year.
His raw defensive stats look lower, but are nothing to be concerned about, considering the possession Chelsea had. All the counting numbers are higher than Martinelli, for example.
Next, let’s compare him to some possible targets, and throw in Saka and Martinelli for reference.
(The first takeaway is that Bradley Barcola and Bukayo Saka are quite good.)
Let’s review Madueke in that sample:
Fairly high in defensive actions.
Fairly low on aerial duels.
The most “successful attacking actions per 90.”
The second-most shots per 90 (3.0), after Eze’s 3.1.
The third-highest crosses per 90 in the sample, after only … Martinelli and Saka.
The second-most touches in the box, after Barcola.
The most progressive runs per 90, defined as “one player attempting to draw the team significantly closer to the opponent goal.” There are parameters to that, but we don’t need to get into that now.
He’s also lower in this sample when it comes to playmaking: assists, through-balls, passes into the penalty area.
For context: I don’t typically include Wyscout’s xG and xA models because I don’t find them to be the most reliable.
Kim from The Transfer Flow (subscribe!) offers this radar.
I have no choice but to also include Scott from CannonStats’ graph on GPA added through carrying and dribbling. (Subscribe there, too.)
He has the most progressive carries out of anyone with 20+ 90s in Europe. The top-5 on total progressive carries are as follows:
Jeremy Doku (Manchester City): 213
Lamine Yamal (Barcelona): 181
Vini Jr (Real Madrid): 169
Noni Madueke (Chelsea): 154
Mo Salah (Liverpool): 154
Onward we go.
🏋🏽♂️ Role & playing experience
From an adjustment and tactical perspective, Chelsea are one of the more comparable sides to Arsenal in the world.
Enzo Maresca, another Pep disciple, runs a high-possession, high-pressing scheme that is based on a fairly rigid occupation of the standard lanes. In practice, it’s slightly more stable, less defensively taxing, and with a higher transitional threat than Arsenal last year. Thanks to that philosophy, as well as the Premier League tax, it’s probably the single cleanest preparation for joining Arsenal other than Manchester City.
In his career, Madueke came up as more of a flexible attacker, but has since found his home as a carrying wide winger, largely deployed on the right.
There’s nothing too complicated about how he’s used. He’s generally the one holding width in a 3-2-5 attacking shape, as you can perhaps see in the shadows here.
He was increasingly used on the left down the stretch last year, with 5 starts there after April. We’ll get into the intricacies of that (how he plays differently from side to side) a little bit later.
In the press, he usually has similar responsibilities to Arsenal wingers, covering wide full-backs, watching centre-backs, and jumping up on triggers. As time has gone on, he’s been one of the more visibly active Chelsea pressers, looking to make a difference there.
He tends to roam a bit more with England. His work there offers a similar takeaway to Zubimendi’s work with Spain, in which you see the outlines of wider responsibilities than they take up for their club. I’ll never decry lower-stakes international games again.
The attacking triangle here may interest you.
As far as his touches go, you’ll see how many of them are over there near the touchline.
Source: Opta
From that spot, he shouldered a lot of responsibility for Chelsea: leading the team in progressive carries, progressive carry distance, and carries into the penalty area. In fact, his carries into the pen (4.12 per 90) were also the highest in the league of any player with 20+ 90s under their belt; more than Salah, Saka, whoever. Only Doku was higher in a practical sense, but played fewer minutes.
That is a specific metric I always have my eye on with Arsenal. Throughout the years, I’ve seen a particular correlation to underlying team success, which makes sense: if you successfully carry into the box, that means you’re penetrating the blocks that typically bedevil our squad. For reference:
When Arsenal had >10 carries into the pen last year, we were 9-0-0
When Arsenal had <5 carries into the pen last year, we were 0-5-0
When going through my winger report, that was one of the real eye-openers: just how few players are capable of accepting the ball in wide spots like that, against Premier League defenders, and manufacturing a serious threat on their own.
That group basically includes #1 (Barcola), #3 (Nico Williams), #7 (Rafael Leão), and likely #9 (Antoine Semenyo). The rest (think Rodrygo, Eze, Xavi Simons, Rogers, etc) either prefer to play centrally, or require some playmates to work their way out of wide areas. Gittens can do it, but is young and in development. Others (Gordon, Mbeumo, etc) are solid but not overwhelming threats in typical 1v1s. It’s a smaller cadre than one may assume.
🧠 Game temperament
Madueke wants the ball. His game temperament is direct and repetitive, and often one-track-minded: he wants to go at defenders over and over again. That makes him a high-responsibility outlet in attack, and was especially prevalent when Chelsea were struggling to create something, or were clunky in build-up.
He doesn’t hesitate to shoot, and works to get off efforts as quickly as possible. But that single-mindedness can be a double-edged sword: he doesn’t connect with teammates as often as he could, which leads to dribbles into traffic or missed combinations. His approach is different from what we’ve seen with that Saka/Ødegaard/White triangle. The exception is 1-2s.
It’s also visible in how much he wants responsibility. He demands the ball, famously fights for penalties (5/5 in his senior career so far), and had no issues stepping up in high-pressure moments (like his extra-time pen against Crystal Palace). He also looks good when stepping up for England, showing no signs of nerves or hesitation.
If teammates don’t find him when he’s in space, he’ll let them know with a frustrated gesture or throw of the arms, and can take a few seconds to “reset” mentally. Here’s him punting it in frustration after a cross is cleared, up 4-2.
Out of possession, Madueke’s level of commitment has risen. Mauricio Pochettino alluded to a shift in mindset when he said Madueke finally “realised what we expect from him,” noting that his work rate and commitment became “the platform” for success. He tracks much more aggressively, closes down with more urgency, and generally doesn’t fade in and out of games defensively like he used to. He’s not a high-volume tackler (1.1 tackles, 0.4 interceptions per 90), and isn’t perfectly natural with angles and coverage, but compared well against his Chelsea cohort.
There’s a little bit of smoke from managers with regard to his level of training application. How much stock you put into that is up to you; I tend to hand-wave that stuff away, giving young players room to grow and change, but perhaps too confidently at times. I can’t really imagine him improving this much without real focus during the week.
He’s been well-served by his variety of experiences in modern, positional attacking tactics. Typically speaking, I’d like my developmental defenders to, pardon me, “eat shit” for a year or two: grinding out tackles in a back-and-forth Championship side, for example, to get as many reps as possible; a defender on a more dominant, “high-end” side may only get 1-2 chances at a direct intervention per match. Alternatively, it’s nice to get an attacker on a team with more field-tilt: you can really see what they look like when denied space. For Madueke, this has led to a pretty flexible, energetic mind, and he looks good when rotating around the front (even if he’s often best used on the touchline).
That budding flexibility points to a good understanding of team tactics. Generally speaking, his decision-making can lack some nuance, which can lead to frustrating moments; those frustrating moments can multiply, because he’s willing to keep going again and again. Defensively, he doesn’t pick up unnecessary cards: 3 yellows last season, mostly soft ones, and zero reds in his career.
As a communicator, he’s not overly vocal, but communicative enough. He developed a good on-field rapport with Cole Palmer; they frequently exchange quick signals or eye contact when setting up a one-two. Being English and having come through an academy system, Madueke is well-versed in comparable environments and has made a lot of friends, and has character references in Saka, Rice, Lewis-Skelly, Timber, and some of Arteta’s friends (namely, Poch). As he gains seniority, he may become more vocal, but even if not, his main value is as a creative spark.
One aspect of communication is how predictable/unpredictable one is. To teammates, he’s becoming predictable in a positive way (they know his tendencies), which helps the team’s coordination. To opponents, it’s difficult to know whether he’s going inside or outside. If he refines his passing game, providing the holy trinity of dribbling, playmaking, and shooting, he’ll be a tougher cover.
Bottom line: Madueke plays with a temperamental directness. He wants to be the difference-maker, and is starting to understand the full scope of what that means: on and off the ball, for 90 minutes. His attacking mindset is fearless and energetic, but not overly associative. His defensive buy-in and emotional control are catching up, and he can definitely get frustrated when things aren’t going his way. He’s still refining the balance between directness and decision-making, but the outlines, production, and playing charisma are there.
🧾 Showing my work + priors
For this piece, I wanted to get a clearer sense of Madueke’s current development: not just what he could be, or what he showed flashes of in Eindhoven. So I mainly went through his Chelsea minutes, and specifically tried to look at him against mid-blocks and low-blocks. I’d watched him a few times already at PSV.
So I speed-ran his performances against Brentford (2x), Manchester City, Real Madrid (friendly), Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, West Ham, Aston Villa, Palmeiras, France (U21), Andorra, Greece, and Finland. I also pulled a 230-clip playlist covering his dribbles, duels, losses, shots, and off-ball movement. I also grabbed a couple all-action comps from PSV matches.
As far as priors go: he was #19 in my Sakanelli score two-and-a-half years ago when he was with PSV, and was on the radar of any stats geek since about that time.
My initial reaction to reports of links to him:
From there:
Basically:
While I liked him as a player, I didn’t initially consider him too closely for this vacancy before the reports started swirling. This is partially because there are so many fucking players. But it’s also because I thought he’d be expensive, he plays right-wing, and I was a bit spooked by the injury history.
As always, my thoughts are not definitive; if you appeal to authority, don’t appeal to me. But here’s what I’ve found.
📄 Scouting report
👉 1v1s, dribbling, and carrying
Source for this and those to follow: Wyscout
The first thing to look at is wide isolation situations, and whether the player can be dangerous when alone, how much help they need, and whether they’re able to unbalance defenders with pace, feints, and tight control.
Power-carries are the standout part of Madueke’s game. When he has space ahead of him, he drives forward aggressively, turning routine possessions into big territory gains. If he receives the ball near midfield, he immediately attacks defenders, forcing them into uncomfortable backpedaling. His pace and strength mean defenders either concede space or get lungy. Statistically, he’s among the league leaders in progressive runs per game, as you’ve seen all over the place. Another graph from Scott, encompassing his whole Chelsea career:
Source: CannonStats
Here’s what that looks like in practice. You’ll see how this stems from two big strengths: the ability to accelerate immediately, and the ability to carry a ball at pace.
It’s often pretty ambitious. Though he can be pretty rambunctious with his carrying, he doesn’t often lose the ball low, while being happy to take on players in locations like this:
In a memorable, explosive Dutch Super Cup performance, he had a brace, opening the scoring within two minutes by driving at Lisandro and then whipping a shot past Timber (who he’s friends with).
More commonly, it looks like this.
He wants to keep his body ramrod-straight while driving at the defender immediately, before the shape is set. He can go outside or inside with his shot, but can be a little predictable with the cut-in: there are a good amount of blocked chances that look like that one.
He’s not uncomfortable with navigating double teams, and has close control and little bursts of pace that can turn into shots in almost any situation.
He also generated 25 shots and 2 goals with his right, so defenders still have to respect both sides.
When shifting to his right, his primary threat is the cutback.
Most of his strengths and weaknesses as an attacker are shown here.
He’s able to drive around a super-fast Premier League defender, then cuts across his body to gain leverage and win high ground. But he also holds onto the ball a bit long, and doesn’t always display the best timing for association.
He can be seen driving into fairly hopeless situations.
In transitional moments, his quality on the ball is especially strong. He’s able to reliably generate “free” yardage when receiving almost anywhere, and I’ve seen improvement at some of his forward passing in those situations.
As you can see in the chart below, his primary joy is achieve by lining up the left-back and creating a shot for himself.
In tighter spaces, he has good control, hand-checks, and leverage, and isn’t pushed off the ball easily.
If we are to say that many of Gyökeres’ opportunities look similar, it must be said that Madueke’s do too. Here’s a goal he threaded through a crowded box.
Again, he drives down at the defender, forces them to backpedal, keeps his body straight, generates a touch of separation, and then shoots. This isn’t really about being unpredictable with which way he’s going; it’s more about masking the timing of when he’s going to cut in and shoot. Because that touch comes at interesting times, and his burst to reclaim and hit the ball is so fast, he can reliably use it to get shots off, even if defenders know that’s what he wants to do.
But more often, you’ll see it look like this, with a shot that is easily telegraphed to the keeper. We’ll get into some of the shooting mechanics later.
He doesn’t have a lot of “dangerous” (i.e. low) losses, but he can feel wasteful up top at times; yes, there is a downside to endlessly trying shit. Here he’s going into a 1v4:
His frustrating periods aren’t because he loses confidence, but because he doesn’t. He just keeps going with the exact same mindset, even if he’s having trouble gaining an advantage. I haven’t seen many full-backs really be able to lock him down, and his cold spells often feel situational.
Out left, he can also feel a little preordained in his moves, as he really prefers to get to the byline. But again, it’s with a move that full-backs just can’t really keep up with. Look how much separation he generates from Mazraoui in two seconds.
His inside cuts, using slower-speed dribbles, don’t feel quite as threatening, for obvious reasons.
But when he gets up a head of steam on the carry, it’s surprising how natural it feels. This didn’t feel aberrational.
This moment here shows why it’s difficult to stop him from getting his shots. He stops the moment, lines up the defender, and can “shift and rip” to either side, and in an instant (which is Semenyo’s superpower). It’s tough to defend.
👉 Breaking down his 1v1s, piece by piece
I have more notes. To try and put a bow on this section, we can look at a few different aspects of a 1v1 and break them down piece by piece, keeping in mind comparisons to players like Doku, Saka, Yamal, and Raphinha:
Carrying control and speed: Yeah. Noni is elite here. He has tight control of the ball at pace and drives at defenders, forcing backpedals and engaging on his own terms. While doing so, he’s good at lining up defenders and keeping his intentions obscured. He’s got this quality on both sides and big-dog energy.
Hips, quick feet, and changes of direction: This is where Doku and Yamal types have him beat. He’s a little more upright; they can kinda separate the movement of their shoulders and hips to be effectively unreadable. Combined with quicker touches and lighter steps, it’s a tough package to beat.
Close control/balance: He doesn’t struggle to keep the ball in congested spaces, or when defenders of all types are leaning on him. Even though he plays tall, it’s not easy to get leverage on him, and he can shoulder-barge his way past virtually any full-back. When he loses the ball, it’s because of overambition, but not because of fundamentally loose touches.
Economy of action: This is where he struggled upon joining Chelsea, and where he’s making his most noticeable improvements. The Premier League is unkind to those who mess around on the ball, and some of his overcomplicated flair worked better in the Eredivisie than it does in England. He’s starting to simplify his actions and commit to the stuff that works, and it’s paying dividends.
Reading triggers: The best dribblers are subtly more reactive than proactive, monitoring their opponents for shifts of weight and heavy steps and acting accordingly. Madueke likes controlling the speed of the 1v1, but is also very proactive: deciding what to do and doing it.
Inside/outside: He has successfully polished the moves he uses for going inside and outside. He still has a preferred Thing (drive, slow down, cut inside, shoot), but varies it up enough, and is comfortable enough, to threaten both directions. There’s still another level of development possible here.
Tempo control: It shouldn’t necessarily be like this, but Saka is a secondary tempo controller of this Arsenal team: he performed a duty that should have been performed by the midfield, speeding things up and slowing things down as the game requires. Madueke is near-ideal cover for Saka’s gravity (drawing 1v2s, etc), but not necessarily for the attacking controller quality: he just wants goals. The hope is that Zubimendi provides that anyway, and that responsibility is offloaded from players who should only be thinking about goals.
Timing of dribbles: He excels at high speeds and is at his best, and most unique, when driving at a defender at full beans. He’s also pretty good when slowing things down to a halt, and then picking his moment to burst away; even if his move is somewhat predictable, the timing of it isn’t, and he can generate serious separation in a second. He doesn’t quite have the “middle gears” sorted.
“Exit” quality: Once it’s time to take the touch away from the defender, his stop-start acceleration is top-tier. The ball is close, close, close, close, then, bam: it’s pushed into space, and the full-back can seldom match his pace as he tracks it down.
Repetition: The raw quality and energy of his carries and dribbles seldom drop during the course of a match.
Decision-making: Saka does the “right” thing every time: inside, outside, direct take-on, cross, give-and-go, cutback, shot, whatever. This is helped because he’s often doing subtle scans along the way to survey his options. Madueke is going to do the most direct thing almost every time, and is more ‘head-down,’ temperamentally. When it doesn’t go right, it can look erratic, as frustrated Chelsea fans can tell you.
On to the off-ball.
👉 Movement / off-ball runs
My mental image of Madueke is that he’s always eager to receive the ball to his feet; like the best kid on a youth team, that mindset can have an inverse relationship to their willingness to make aggressive, in-behind runs, as that means running away from the ball they covet.
Turns out that was overly simplistic. Watching this, he’s a real threat. His pace lets him consistently attack the spaces between full-backs and center-backs, bending runs to slip through defensive lines.
👉 Shoulder runs
He has a specific run that works best: blindside shoulder runs on the full-back. We learned this the hard way, when he scored his first Premier League goal by unsheathing some Zinchenko Kryptonite:
Here it is at full speed (with a pause).
He shows sharp instincts on these, timing runs to stay onside and accelerating at just the right moment.
You can see him storming through the middle on this one, matching Wissa stride-for-stride.
You can see him coming alive on the bottom here, showing real pace.
But yeah, the most threatening kind of run he does is on the full-back’s shoulder. Enzo hit him on a few balls over the top like this, and you can hopefully picture Zubimendi doing the same.
Here, he zagged between the FB/CB gap.
This has real utility for Arsenal: this is the exact kind of run that can break apart mid-blocks, and which Arsenal are too light on.
It looks especially pronounced in situations with weaker defenders, or at least weaker defensive shapes. He has some potential as a flat track bully against weaker sides, and can be really greedy as a countering runner against high lines, as he was late in this City friendly I watched.
👉 Back-post runs
This is what you’d like to see more of.
He has the tools: physicality, strong shoulders, immediate burst of pace. He even has some height and length to help him with popped crosses.
And, truth be told, he does snap alive in quick, harried moments after ball-wins that might result in goals.
But in practice, he’s just not there quite enough. I think this is a “wait and see” attribute. Right now, he’s a little too far away from the action, but as time goes on, I could see him getting a better grasp. There are a lot of goals on offer by doing those Brennan Johnson-style tap-ins.
👉 1-2s
We’ll get into his general linkup and association play in a bit, and it’s not all that effusive. But one particularly refined part of his game is quick 1-2s.
It’s a pretty simple, u10 move that works again and again. He gives up the ball, and while the full-back’s eyes track the reception, he disappears in the blindside over their shoulder and sprints in behind.
Fun fact after watching that assist:
For Chelsea, Madueke had 13 shot assists to Palmer, resulting in 0 goals.
For England, Madueke had 2 shot assists to Kane, resulting in 2 goals.
This is a sustainable advantage for him because his stop-start pace is so good. He gets a step and then never cedes ground from there.
Tomiyasu fully sniffed this out and still didn’t stop it:
Overall, Madueke can be pretty greedy with his runs and has a particularly nice feel for blindside movements and 1-2s. His wide starting position often gives him a head of steam, and full-backs struggle to match his immediate pace, which is especially useful against the compact blocks that have historically frustrated Arsenal.
He could be more aggressive attacking cut-backs and making far-post runs when the ball is on the opposite wing; I just haven’t seen much of it from him at LW. He could also do these runs more, period. The tools are there, but it’s still a work in progress.
The main tool (running behind the full-back) is real, and it’s excellent.
👉 Passing and receiving
Madueke isn’t a particularly dangerous passer right now. He’s not the most visionary, and his execution on crosses, especially traditional wide deliveries, tends to be pretty inconsistent. But that could change. There’s nuance already: his cutbacks with his right foot and crosses from the left side carry a threat and have caused problems for opponents. And he can hit some fun ones to runners ahead when carrying.
His best attribute is receiving and shielding the ball under pressure. He’s always been able to use “body as barrier” and withstand contact, and he’s getting better at being more aggressive with his initial moves. It’s hard to recall seeing any particularly costly giveaways or cheap turnovers in tight spots. So, the standard, rondo-style passing is not an issue.
But let’s dig into the other stuff.
👉 Big crosses
Madueke has a decent ball-strike in him, and has taken a few odd corners here and there in his career, but the footage of his crosses isn’t the most impressive viewing. When delivering traditional, lofted crosses from deeper positions, they can float a bit.
When it goes well, it looks fairly familiar.
But too often, there’s inconsistent technique on these. As far as I can tell, here’s why: too often, he is not committing with his whole body, stabbing at it instead of really driving it, leaning a little too far back, and not getting his top half generating enough torque all the way through.
To contrast that, here’s a freeze-frame of a Saka assist to Havertz. You can see how demonstrative his follow-through is: the swivel of his top half is doing a lot of the work. His genius is not in doing this; it’s in doing this every. single. time.
With the other foot, here’s Rice. It’s further away, but you can see how much lean, force, and upper-body twist it requires to get the whip and power he wants.
Madueke is technically capable of this. He just needs to be more consistent.
There are other types of crosses available to him. Often, it looks like this, where he’s operating at a serious pace and then quickly fizzing it in. The ball itself is good, but he’s also not actively scanning the periphery, and Chelsea don’t have the most impressive runners for these, so the delivery isn’t always fully in sync with the placement of the attackers.
With his right, he can offer these pop crosses at interesting times, and it looks like there may be some potential there.
Similarly, on the left, he can throw those into the mixer that can threaten, and there is serious potential here considering how often he can get to the byline: it’s just very easy for him, and he can hit these left-footed offerings in full stride. In fact, his passing into the box seemed much more threatening (and often first-touch) whenever he played on the left. This must be a big part of what Arsenal see.
Basically: traditional high crosses from wide, deep areas aren’t a strong aspect of his game yet. It could improve, but there’s a dropoff from Saka. When he’s on the left and driving at the byline, everything seems pretty promising.
👉 Cutbacks, through-balls, and low crosses
This is Madueke’s strongest type of cross, and a critical part of his attacking effectiveness. After beating defenders one-on-one near the byline, he frequently opts for drilled, low balls across the face of goal, or cutbacks to arriving teammates.
Again, by eye test, this is where he is cooking on the left. Average-speed full-backs just can’t keep up. This is not a replay of a clip from earlier.
This, too, is not a replay: it’s another one from the same game.
There are glimmers like this, when he came on late for ESR in a U21 game against a France team that had gone unbeaten in fourteen straight. He had a goal and two assists, and was named Man of the Match.
This next one was after long carry, which the defender had a long time to get ready. Considering that advantage, it’s impressive he got a cross off. But there are a lot of these that get rescued by the keeper.
There’s also, it should be said, some random shit.
👉 Long-balls and switches
Long balls and diagonal switches are fairly peripheral in Madueke’s game, at least in my viewing. He rarely attempts ambitious, long-distance passes or diagonal balls to switch the point of attack. He either goes at the defender, or pulls it back and recycles.
His vision for these longer-range passes can be limited, partly by a wide positional orientation on the wing, and partly by instinctual tendencies to progress the ball through dribbling or close combinations.
👉 Link-up
Madueke shows some inconsistency in short, quick link-up play, with flourishes of genius. His transitional carries can garner a lot of attention, opening up space for others. He executes effective one-twos around the box, tapping and running behind with serious immediacy, and shows improving judgement in deciding between passing versus dribbling. His combination play with teammates has improved, and he’s always secure in standard build-up sequences.
When carrying with runners ahead, his forward passing has flashes of real quality.
Hey, here’s him hitting a similar one to Kai.
And another one, to Gallagher.
Otherwise, he feels fairly underbaked at playing his teammates in. The timing and touch often seem a bit off, for now.
👉 Receiving under pressure, shielding, drawing pressure
I consider Madueke a good receiver and shielder of the ball. All over the pitch, actually. His body is usually open, he leaves himself options, and he’s strong and unbothered.
He can fight off challenges in bouncy moments.
Saw him win similar battles with Kerkez.
He can play a more floating role for the national team (both in u21, and now for Tuchel), and he looks plenty comfortable when occupying different zones. He turned-and-burned here for a goal in a romp. He looked like a bully in this one.
The only real moments of insecurity are more advanced stuff like this; there can be oddball moments at times.
👉 Positioning, shooting & ball-striking
One thing Madueke does consistently well is get himself into the box. His touch volume there is elite (96th percentile among wingers) and it comes from both dribbling and smart movement. He starts on the touchline but is not content to stay there. He wants to drive inside, link play around the edge of the area if needed, and turn the touch into a goal. He is capable of real power.
Most of his shots are self-generated. As we’ve covered, he’s very good at the quick cut-inside-and-shoot move on his left, or a little shimmy to shift it and whip it right-footed: aiming for the roof of the net. The fact that he can go both ways gives him just enough unpredictability to get that foot of separation, and when he’s decisive, the shot’s already off before the defender can react.
That quick release, with minimal backlift, is one of his better traits. He’ll catch keepers cold if he catches the strike cleanly.
One challenge: he doesn’t get on the end of enough teammate-created chances for my liking. Not a lot of tap-ins, in other words. He’s got the snap reaction time and frame to get to bouncing balls first, even on, yes, set plays. He has poacher physical qualities (long legs, box presence, quick reactions) but not poacher results.
His shot volume is extremely strong, which again tells you he’s getting into good areas. He tends to hit the target at a good clip. He hasn’t quite figured out how to reliably generate controlled violence with his hits; it can sometimes feel like a choice between over-tameness and wild power. Some of that could be fatigue: he was an xG overperformer the year before, and had more bangers in the Netherlands, but he’s carrying more workload now, especially with defensive responsibilities and high carry volume, so by the time he gets to the shot, it’s not always clean.
Another aspect is the mechanics. He sometimes leans back on contact, kind of over-wrapping it, which can sap power.
This is another, where he takes kind of a wild swing at it.
He’s never scored a Premier League goal from outside the box, and doesn’t attempt many. The fact that he can take so many shots, without resorting to the long, spurious ones, is promising.
Nonetheless, he has the technical base to hit it well. If he starts striking through the ball with more reliable mechanics, I think there are a few more goals in there, with both feet. He’s already doing the hard part: creating space, getting into the box, and generating xG.
When his strikes are fundamental, and he has his legs under him, he’s capable of big moments. Here’s a Yamal goal from when Yamal was probably 13 or something.
He’s a willing penalty taker, of course. He’s never missed a competitive one in his life, usually going left.
Across senior levels, WhoScored has him with 19 goals with his left, 6 with his right, and two more with his head.
👉 Out-of-possession
Madueke’s out-of-possession work is improving, and maybe even turning into a real strength.
👉 Defensive intensity
I’ll start with what I don’t like: if a ball is lost and he’s frustrated by what led to it, whether a missed pass or unexpected bounce, he can take a couple seconds to regroup before running after the play.
If it’s a standard, chaotic situation, he reacts quickly and physically. He has long legs that can block passing lanes and stop things from happening.
I love these “Inside Training” handicam videos because they give you the feeling of being there, and reinforce how violently athletic “slow” Premier Leaguers like Christian Nørgaard are. This isn’t a particularly exciting clip, but look how many steps and adjustments Nørgaard makes on the balls of his feet in the matter of a couple of seconds. That’s what it takes.
Madueke is getting a lot more active and physical.
You’ll see all his strengths, and a bit of remaining development there: long legs, quick bursts, repeat intensity, pure strength. But he’s also over-committing to angles a bit. I don’t mind a gambler if your overall press is sound.
👉 Pressing
In the press, he’s become a pretty high-effort player, and he’ll track opposing wingers or wing-backs all the way to his own corner flag. He doesn’t cheat forward like a Leão. He helps everywhere, and wants to turn wins into chances.
I don’t see him often missing assignments or being late on jumps. He looks alert and active.
When the ball isn’t near him, he still walks, and statistically, he’s one of the highest walkers in the league. But when it’s time to act, he goes hard. He’s physical and aggressive, and can really dispossess someone in a duel. He’s a physical mismatch for most full-backs and many midfielders.
He can still take poor angles when looking to tackle: too aggressive, leaving escape routes open. But the application is largely there, and the physicality definitely is.
👉 Aerials
In the air, he doesn’t offer much. He’s about 6’0”, so the frame is there, but with just 11 aerial wins at a 36.7% success rate, he’s not a real factor as an outlet. He can jump, but the timing and commitment aren’t ideal. I do think he has some potential on bouncing balls and rebounds in the box, and he’s shown that about twice.
👉 Counterpressing
Here’s one of his most exciting traits: he’s greedy about turning ball-wins into transitions.
There are a lot of freeze-frames like the below. Here, Madueke, Gallagher, and the wider Chelsea press have won the ball. Before Palmer has tracked it down, Madueke is already at a sprint. His reactions to these, smelling goals, are great.
Here’s the full clip. If his reactions were a step or two later, he wouldn’t have been in position to score. Make your own luck and all that.
This next one feels pretty similar, but a loose ball caroms through the middle on a press win. Everybody is fairly static, but Madueke is doing a diagonal sprint through the channel to score.
Overall, it feels like he understands the levels required in the Premier League, and will hopefully find another rung as he competes for time. He seems very growth-minded in this area, and not quite at his final potential.
🚑 Injuries and Availability
Madueke has had a number of injuries in his young career, mostly muscular.
The 2021/22 season was a particularly rough one. He suffered four separate muscle injuries (mostly hamstring issues) that kept him out for around 154 days and caused him to miss 33 games for PSV. It disrupted his momentum: he’d return from one strain, only to pick up another a few weeks later.
This has improved, and I’ve been urged calma on this by people smarter than I. It’s not uncommon for younger players making the jump to the highest level, with bodies that are changing rapidly, to face periods like this. They pick up knocks, don’t get proper breaks, and have no time to strengthen during the season. You really only get a read on their durability after a full summer, and many do put those tougher stretches (heh, heh) behind them. Young players also learn how to take care of their bodies better. I think that’s been the case with Dembélé.
We also must admit that clubs work with more information than we do. They’ve got medicals, data, specifics, and there’s only so much we can say from our vantage point.
Still, I’d feel a lot better if the hamstring hadn’t flared up again this spring. More than that, this isn’t just a “can he stay healthy?” bet. It’s a Calafiori-style risk: you’re not just asking a player with a flagged history to stay healthy; you’re asking him to step into a more intense, demanding system while making a fairly pricy wager on his body meeting the task at hand. This hurts to type: he’s started and completed only 11 league games in his senior career. Saka, still 23, has completed 120.
He’s entering his physical prime; especially for a dribbler, those aged 22-25 years are when players hit their stride. A glass-half-full-type would say “his miles are low,” and there are limits to my information. But from where I’m sitting, this injury risk feels pretty significant.
🤔 Positions, positions
Madueke was England’s Man of the Match against Andorra, with Tuchel singling him out for praise as probably “the most dangerous, the most active” player, and “one of the few who met expectations.” Interestingly, he played both flanks: once Eze came on for Palmer, Madueke switched from left-wing to the right.
His thoughts:
Even more interestingly, in that national team context, he’s already talked about how he sees himself in relation to a certain right-winger:
Let’s sketch it out.
We’ll start on the right. Here’s an example XI with Saka out.
(I put in Gyökeres because I wanted to see what that looked like, too.)
Right-wing is still Madueke’s most natural habitat. He’s an elite ball carrier from that side, with a mix of stop-start rhythm and burst that lets him drive deep at will before chopping inside. Going right, he’s got two main weapons: the right-footed rocket aimed at the roof of the net, and the cutback across the face once he pulls defenders with him. Going left, he looks to shoot, and does so in great volume. His crosses when he cuts in can float or be inconsistent, and the final ball has been pretty messy, but some of those are tidy, and he’s still one of the rare wide players who can manufacture danger on his own without needing a combination to get out of the cul-de-sac. As we covered earlier, that’s a shorter list than we may think.
To the left.
We may see more of this. It’s a slightly different version of Madueke, and a more intriguing one than I expected. He doesn’t invert as much, and can’t lean on that nice cut-in ripped shot, but he can feel higher-octane. He’s still a top-tier carrier, maybe even more direct. He can hold width, drive the line, and attack the box at full tilt, tilting his hips one way before bursting the other, and finishing across goal with his right. He doesn’t need a lot of help to do this, which is helpful, because a player like Lewis-Skelly isn’t going to offer as many overlaps as White. Originally doubtful, I now expect him to get a real shot at minutes here; he might be more natural than Martinelli at the widest incarnation of this role.
That width, in turn, clears interior space for others. You don’t need Rice stationed out by the corner flag, which doesn’t suit him, and it gives Calafiori or Lewis-Skelly a cleaner inside pocket to work from.
Remember the Lewis-Skelly goal against City?
Remember this?
When Madueke has it out wide, it could look like this: half-space room for Lewis-Skelly, Calafiori, and Rice to play with, the ability to drive to the byline, and the box occupied by Rice on cleanup duty, Gyökeres doing striker darts, Saka cleaning up the far-post, and Ødegaard crashing the Ø-zone. The only issue here is the lack of an aerial threat on higher crosses.
We’ll have to think about occupying the box on Saka crosses, as well. With Madueke on the left and Rice at LCM, you're probably asking Rice to arrive at the penalty spot and Madueke to be the far-post threat (where he’s still pretty raw). I wouldn’t necessarily want Madueke to be drawing up too many first-touch chances for his right foot in the middle. With Martinelli, there’s more comfort in letting him arrive late and central: he’s got a better knack (and foot) for those narrow-angled finishes or poke-ins. So it’s less about who’s better and more about what kind of threat you want: constant width and directness from Madueke, or the box-crashing of Martinelli.
In other words, if Madueke is at LW, he’d be “Player C.”
I’m trying to think of more creative uses of him, but it feels forced. I guess he could be an emergency option at striker. He’s got the instincts to pop up centrally, and I could potentially see him operating as a second forward as he gets older, maybe in an Inter-style setup. I’ve always had that half-joke about flipping wingers into wingbacks against low blocks (Martinelli as a surprise RWB, a Minteh-type at LWB), but I wouldn’t really want Madueke doing shuttle runs wide.
I don’t think Arsenal would shell out this kind of fee for Madueke if they didn’t see real potential at LW. But you don’t buy a specific position, you buy a suite of characteristics that you can find useful for 4-5 years, regardless of what may change in your tactical intentions: think Timber LB/RCB/RB, Havertz LCM/ST, Rice 6/8, Merino LCM/RCM/ST, White RCB/RB, Kiwior tried in four different roles, the list goes on. Nobody wins anything by guessing their first or last one. You simply want players you can trust to do the job, and can do more than one.
Finding someone who can dominate 1v1s from the touchline is rare. Finding one who can probably do it from both wings is quite useful.
📁 Tactical updates
In January, I wrote What’s the Difference?, which was a deep-dive into the respective tactical identities of Liverpool and Arsenal at the time. There was a lot of Salah and Circumstance involved in how the title race played out, but it was also worth a moment to look at things critically and see what we could learn.
The biggest item of curiosity: Arsenal complain about not having space to attack. Liverpool had fewer problems finding it. Why is that?
Here’s a TL;DR of a few tactical differences that may have played into Liverpool’s advantage:
Liverpool held possession deeper, rather than immediately forcing entry into the final third. They’re more willing to play forward-and-back than side-to-side, recycling play to draw defenders out and preserve space behind.
Liverpool’s attacking build-up tended to be generally slower, deliberately preserving space higher up. Then they’d flip into sudden, quick attacks, exploiting the spaces they’ve intentionally maintained.
Arsenal over-relied on long-balls from Raya, in my view. Liverpool had Trent Alexander-Arnold to offer the analog. He was dropping long-balls deeper, scarier, and closer to goal.
Liverpool were less aggressive in the first line of press, conserving energy for explosive tackling and pressing in the middle third, creating turnovers in areas where they have space to attack immediately. This led to lower amounts of running, but more shots.
And let’s be clear that much of it was emergent from player quality: more attackers, faster attackers, better ball-striking. But still, they were set up well.
As Zubimendi, Madueke, Gyökeres, and hopefully another attacker join, here are a few things I think should be put into the tactical consideration set for such a carrying, hopefully transitional bunch:
Fewer launches, more playing out the back. I think Zubimendi can help us keep it in the lower third more, and keep it on the ground more, until an advantage is found. I feel like we used the long-ball as a crutch instead of a weapon last year.
More central combinations, of course.
There’s an opportunity to relax the level of engagement in the first line of press and spring more aggressive midfield traps. This can keep legs fresher up front. But it can also get Zubimendi, Rice, and Ødegaard closer together in the midfield; from that position, you can give them license to be incredibly aggressive about their jumps, winning the ball, and hitting it forward as quickly as possible. Up higher, a combination of Martinelli/Madueke, Havertz/Gyökeres, and Saka (plus, Nwaneri and hopefully a player like Eze) can then save more of their sprints for in-possession phases, and be more likely to receive it in space. This is how you can generate those opportunities for Gyökeres channel runs, not to mention Madueke carries and blindside darts.
Decline “easy progression” more often. There are triggers that cause Arsenal opponents to drop all the way back into the box: wide, fairly uninterrupted carries by Martinelli and Ødegaard, for example. Arsenal should make sure either a) the block is broken with an aggressive pass or b) our most threatening carriers are doing the carrying: Saka, Lewis-Skelly, Madueke, Gyökeres, Rice, Nwaneri, Calafiori, Zubimendi, a player like Eze, etc. If not, recycle and find another way through. I’d like to keep Martinelli more off-ball, more marauding, more associative, more fox-in-the-box.
And a lot of it is just a vibe thing: being more immediate and ruthless when an advantage is on offer.
Arsenal needn’t be fatalistic about not having space. You can generate it.
One of my closing points of that piece, interestingly for this one, was this:
Young and good, capable of being great, flippable for €25m, you say?
Let’s wrap it up, then.
🔥 Final thoughts
🐻 Bear case
The bear-est case is simple: Madueke’s injury issues return. His hamstring problems flare up in a more intense system, limiting his availability and stalling the tweaks he still needs to make. That locks in some of his rough edges as something more lasting, and is especially a concern if an injury affects his stop-start burst or overall intensity, both of which are central to his impact. He becomes a Tomiyasu in attack, and doesn’t offer enough real depth.
I don’t personally see a big “Grealish risk” here in forcing conservatism upon a dynamic player. It’s just not who Madueke is. Ignoring injury risk, the performance bear case is that his decision-making and end product don’t improve much, defenders get better at devising repeatable ways of narrowing his options, and he doesn’t arrive and generate cheap goals on late arrivals and the like. I also thought his Chelsea form improved with regular starts, which is obvious, but it can be hard for some players to get in a rhythm in smaller chunks of time. In that version, he’s a rotation player, not a star. And yeah, some of the erratic stuff will draw groans from the crowd.
We’re spoiled with Saka, who makes the right choice basically every time. Martinelli has some flaws, but he usually steers clear of wasteful losses. So we can forget what it’s like to have a winger who really tries shit, risks and all. That means mistakes and losses, sometimes awkward ones. It’s the cost of doing business. No one needs to listen to me, but I do hope supporters keep that in mind.
If he doesn’t bed in well at LW, and he’s only a rotation player, the biggest issue is opportunity cost. You didn’t go bigger for a more obvious solution, where less projection was necessary, right when that felt needed. You fail to lock in a true left-wing solution, so that side doesn’t click … again. And we’re back to square one.
🐮 Bull case
When we started the search, I put two goals for the summer above all else, even above striker:
A midfielder who can enhance and balance the build-up, providing readier advantages to the final-third players
One or two dynamic, swashbuckling, give-me-the-fucking-ball attacking forces (ideally helping on the left)
Zubimendi is an ideal fit for the first objective.
And when you say “dynamic, swashbuckling, give-me-the-fucking-ball” attacker, there are few clearer incarnations than Noni Madueke.
In the bull scenario, Madueke builds on his immense foundation and simply becomes one of the world’s best wingers. The optimistic view is that Arsenal craftily found a steal in a market increasingly bereft of them. He’s already one of the world’s best carriers, is proven to the league’s physical and tactical demands, and is at the ideal age for signing a winger. He has some of the best carrying and shot-generation stats around.
Aside from the injury question and the opportunity cost of not going all-in on a more proven left-winger, there’s no question that ~£50m represents a market deal on pure quality at a time when Brennan Johnson is going for the same, Anthony Elanga is going for more, and Mbeumo is going for £70m (plus big wages).
He, then, opens up all kinds of tactical possibilities. Saka coverage goes from an open question to a clear strength; it could literally lengthen his career, which is not said lightly. Nwaneri gets to focus his work inside, which is his future. It may even open Saka up to more creative uses. When Madueke starts at right-wing, his running may magnet defenders away from the middle, disrupt those pesky mid-blocks, and open even more space for Ødegaard to operate. He, like Gyökeres, has real potential as a flat-track bully. When he’s better than somebody, he smells blood.
On the left, the creative gamble works out. Martinelli has been shoehorned as a width-holder, and Madueke proves to be the real thing, clearing space in the inside channel for players like Calafiori and Lewis-Skelly to have their fun, as he drives at the byline and pops in dangerous crosses, and charges in to disrupt blocks.
Arsenal need people who run fast, drive at defenders, try shit, and take shots. Madueke is an answer to those questions. In particular, he has the potential to add real dynamism and bite to transition opportunities, both with the ball (carrier) and as a runner (in behind, and after ball-wins). The bet is that with these qualities, scaled up to an environment with more stability and leadership, he can unlock his full potential. That is a player near the top of the per-90 charts in carries, box touches, shots, and, increasingly, goals.
More than that, he has potential for a cultural impact: making the Arsenal team more ambitious, more direct, and more overpowering.
Madueke is an unexpected addition. I certainly wasn’t expecting it.
I have little doubt about his underlying qualities. His strengths are superlative, and his charisma on the pitch permeates. With so many different possibilities, and genuine rotation on offer, it will be interesting to see how it works out. The injury history is enough to where I personally may have shied away, but I also acknowledge I don’t have all the information (or expertise) to make that decision. This makes him a high-ceiling, medium-risk signing. It was time for one of those in attack.
Watching him, you can see why somebody in a video room would get target-lock. Going through his stats, you can see why a data nerd would do the same. That combination says a lot. His skills are rarer than one may assume.
Ultimately, he’s but one part of the attacking revamp. Zubimendi is the most important addition to that, for my money, and Gyökeres is now set to join. To me, a creative, dynamic, final-ball type threat (Eze) is not optional from here: there is not enough of that with Saka off the pitch, and Madueke doesn’t dramatically change that. The success of the window depends on it. If Arsenal don’t go “big” on a signing like Isak, they must cover all bases. Madueke and Eze (or an Eze-type) jigsaw nicely.
But in any incarnation, Madueke is talented enough to be a level-raiser: a bold bet on carrying, dribbling, shot generation, potential, and boldness itself.
Football requires a healthy delusion from all. Delusion from the players: that out of the millions who grow up dreaming of the lights, you can be one of the few who is stubborn enough, and lucky enough, to grasp the highest things. Delusion from the decision-makers: that you are smart enough to assemble a squad that prevails in a subworld of smart people, oil states, shameless media, endless money, and powers-that-be. Delusion from supporters: that this, alas, is the year.
Madueke is set to feed that delusion once more.
It’s always delusion until it isn’t.
