Personally I think Smith-Rowe is ahead of Martinelli at the moment. Marti is still quite raw but his natural talent and workrate is pulling him along.
Not sure how you can Saka or Martinelli finishing consistently is one of the weapons keeping ESR out either. Its the most obvious thing he's clearly better at.
goon wrote:Was talking about this with a friend and it reminded me of this thread from a couple of years back:
Same opinion I had back then. I really like all our prospect. But Saka is on a different level.
I voted Martinelli in the last thread but no doubt Saka is ahead of him now. Martinelli had an awful injury though, impossible to say how close he'd be to Saka if not for that.
Qwiss! wrote:Personally I think Smith-Rowe is ahead of Martinelli at the moment. Marti is still quite raw but his natural talent and workrate is pulling him along.
Not sure how you can Saka or Martinelli finishing consistently is one of the weapons keeping ESR out either. Its the most obvious thing he's clearly better at.
Beat a man and finish. I don't think there's much daylight between the three especially in terms of "ceiling" but there's a reason Arteta's favoured Martinelli and Saka's explosiveness and guile on the wings.
Output aside, I'd say Martinelli is probably the best finisher of the three despite having the worst numbers to date this season.
Quincy Abeyie wrote:I voted Martinelli in the last thread but no doubt Saka is ahead of him now. Martinelli had an awful injury though, impossible to say how close he'd be to Saka if not for that.
Correct on both counts
Surprised so few rate ESR. I have him comfortably ahead of Martinelli and just behind Saka who is naturally ahead due to playing more minutes. That said, I reckon ESR and Saka will eventually land at around the same level at their peak and both will be better than Martinelli who I think will fall just short of being elite.
Saka by a distance for me. He's not far off from being able to get into any side in Europe. Remarkably complete and intelligent player who's beginning to add the end product.
Tambourine Man wrote:Surprised so few rate ESR. I have him comfortably ahead of Martinelli and just behind Saka who is naturally ahead due to playing more minutes. That said, I reckon ESR and Saka will eventually land at around the same level at their peak and both will be better than Martinelli who I think will fall just short of being elite.
I think everyone on this forum (bar maybe Dules) rate ESR. Thinking that Saka is a bigger talent certainly doesn't mean you don't.
Burnwinter wrote:Output aside, I'd say Martinelli is probably the best finisher of the three despite having the worst numbers to date this season.
He should be and possibly will be but right now ESR is the best finisher of the 3. He's just as capable of beating his man too and he is a little better than Marti in his off the ball movement. I'd say Marti has the most potential in terms of one on one dribbling between them but right now has a tendency to over do it and run into dead ends.
They are all great anyway so its not like I'm trying to talk down Martinelli. I just think ESR is severely underrated at the moment due to not playing as much. People talk up the likes of Phil Foden for instance but ESR is the same age and scored more with less minutes in the league this year, and he doesn't have KDB, Bernardo, Cancello, Gundogan, Mahrez, etc setting him up all day long. Put any of our 4 young attackers into that City team and they'd look even better.
I don't think ESR is underrated at all, at least I hope not. He was the one carrying us not long ago while Saka was struggling for form, if you ran this poll back in November he'd probably be pushing Saka. I think Gabi is actually starting to take a little dip now (despite his goal) so I wouldn't surprise me to see ESR come back in.
Unfortunately I think the stakes are a little too high to take Laca or Xhaka out of the equation right now, but I'm personally not in such a rush to see all four at once anyway.
Can we include Odegaard in this discussion?
Sure but he's 3 years older than Saka and Martinelli.
I don't think Ødegaard belongs in this particular chat, having come to us from Real Madrid's loanee network, being a bit older, and being a bit more screwed together and serious in his outlook.
Even from the perspective of these three players Ødegaard enjoys a certain senior status that comes through in what they say in interviews etc.
Have to give a shout out to Martinelli, what an absolute baller, was toying with TAA most of the game
Facts. If there was someone to get on the end of a couple of those moves we'd have been watching the replays for years ...
Interesting that against most opposition Saka/Ode look better, but against the top teams (City/Pool) it has been Martinelli who stands out.
Probably more down to the fact Robertson had an outstanding match
Every time I think Martinelli is still a bit raw he surprises with some outstanding technical ability. His drive is also incredible. No idea who has the highest ceiling but we're lucky to have them all.
Martinelli's technical ability is above Saka's, who himself is no technical slouch. He is much more raw though, Saka is already a fairly cultured player.
Gabigol has that Messi-like ability to make technically precise movement and guile appear very simple.
Gurgen wrote:Every time I think Martinelli is still a bit raw he surprises with some outstanding technical ability. His drive is also incredible. No idea who has the highest ceiling but we're lucky to have them all.
agree with this. I always felt he was quite raw with his dribbling but he's shown some great dribbling instincts that I didn't think he had in his locker
