Arsenal have agreed to loan Ethan Nwaneri to Marseille for the second half of the season, with Mikel Arteta keen for the teenager to continue his progress under Roberto De Zerbi. The move follows limited first-team opportunities at Arsenal this campaign.<\/p>\n
Nwaneri has slipped down the pecking order behind more experienced colleagues. The summer signings of Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze have reduced his game time; he has made just 12 appearances so far and has not played in the Premier League since November. To prevent his development from stalling, Arsenal fielded loan enquiries from a number of clubs across Europe, many of which were interested in a permanent deal. The club rejected those approaches and never entertained the prospect of selling the record-breaking teenager.<\/p>\n
The Athletic\u2019s David Ornstein reports Marseille won the race for Nwaneri, agreeing what appears to be a straight six-month loan with no chance of a permanent transfer. Marseille, currently third in Ligue 1, have included a chunky loan fee in the agreement, with the unknown sum set to drop depending on how many appearances he makes across the second half of the season.<\/p>\n
Arsenal value Nwaneri highly and regard him as one of the top talents of his generation. The club worked hard to fend off competition to secure him on a new five-year contract during the summer. Despite limited minutes under Arteta, he remains seen as a crucial part of the club\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s win-now strategy saw significant investment in the summer transfer window, bringing in Madueke and Eze among others. For Nwaneri, those arrivals occupy his strongest positions and have influenced the decision to seek a temporary move. At senior level he has been seen as a right winger after a stint as a stand-in for Saka last season, but his development has largely taken place as a central attacking midfielder, a role most commonly occupied in the first team by club captain Martin \u00d8degaard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marseille will take Ethan Nwaneri on a six-month loan as Arsenal seek to protect his long-term value<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1163],"tags":[1081,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-6103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-transfers","tag-adaptation","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6103","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=6103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}