Noni Madueke has emerged as one of Arsenal\u2019s most eye-catching performers in the opening weeks of the 2025\/26 season, and Mikel Arteta has highlighted how the winger handled vocal fan disapproval after his summer switch from Chelsea.<\/p>\n
Madueke was a standout again in Saturday\u2019s 3\u20130 win over Nottingham Forest. Arteta described the player\u2019s attitude as a major factor in his fast adaptation to the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of courage, that\u2019s how I\u2019d describe him,\u201d Arteta told the media of Madueke. \u201cObviously a lot of quality but a lot of courage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were about to sign him and there was that reaction around him. I spoke to him and he was like, I\u2019ll go for it, I can\u2019t wait to put that shirt on and play for you guys.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018wow, let\u2019s bring him\u2019. If I was convinced before, I\u2019m more convinced now that he\u2019s going to do it. He has such a power, such a capacity to repeat efforts because to be able to do that physically you have to have a different specimen, I think.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s certainly that but he\u2019s very skilful, very unpredictable. He\u2019s so willing to learn and it brings joy. I look at him and he\u2019s always smiling, he\u2019s always trying things. He gets one wrong, he goes again and that\u2019s what I love about the creative players because you need that to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shift in perception has been visible on broadcast coverage as well. One notable changer of heart was Martin Keown, who apologised to Madueke during TNT Sports\u2019 coverage and queried the player about recent progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cNoni, have you taken your game to another level?\u201d Keown asked. \u201cBecause you look more collective. I was worried about you when you came. Because I thought sometimes you can be a little bit selfish. But now, you seem to have got really good balance to your play. The decisions you\u2019re making have been outstanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s getting that balance. I think your decision-making has changed. Is that the manager? Is it the new club? What has happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
Madueke offered a modest response, reflecting on balance and self-belief.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel it\u2019s important to keep that self-belief that you can get the ball and do it yourself as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a winger, I feel like you need that. But of course, like you\u2019re saying, I\u2019m playing with such top players and it\u2019s important for me to try and find them as much as I try and play my own type of game. It\u2019s easy to play with these guys. I\u2019m having a great time. Maybe I have taken a step in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta praises Madueke’s response to fan criticism, hailing his courage, quality and consistency…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1019,1018],"class_list":["post-2810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-creative-players","tag-player-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}