Burnwinter This is it. He's consistently looked dynamic and dangerous when subbed on. We might have a handful more points if he'd been used more on these occasions.

....protection argument sounds pretty bogus when we're talking about 30 minutes a week.

Personally these two comments are contradictory to me. The fact that fans (myself included) want to use a 17yr old to turn things around for us tells me expectations are sky high.

He came on with 30 mins to go against Newcastle (before the likes of Zinchenko, Partey, Jesus, Sterling etc) and struggled to do anything bar a late turn and shot on goal from 30 yards. That's probably far more likely to be the norm unless he's genuinely a generational world class talent, because it's only in the remit of a very select few to be able to have that sort of extended impact on games.

      QuincyAbeyie.
      @RocktheCasbah recommended Clive Palmer’s podcast from yesterday. I just took a listen now. And Clive, an amateur coach, makes a lot of sense. Basically says the following

      • Arteta has integrated Nwaneri into the senior team for the last two years now. So he knows him well.
      • Each time Nwaneri has started, he’s come off with cramps. He’s started one game and finished, and it was against League 1 team (which makes sense given the physical gap between league 1 and premier league players)
      • Clive also says he thinks having Saka and Odegaard around to take care of Nwaneri will give more minutes due to foundation they create. He said young players’ confidence is fragile and you don’t want to expose them to a chaotic team.
      • etc.

      The arguments he laid out make much more sense than “choosing not to play Nwaneri is choosing not to win”

          goon No need to get snappy.

          Look, it is a relatively minor point and my snappiness was proportionate. I don't need a couple of non-idiotic interlocutors omitt-splaining basic facts to me.

          To me "Arteta knows" doesn't quite stack up as far as this question goes. It seems to me there's been a couple of average match day decisions made due either to poor judgement or a lack of courage / dressing room influence.

          I'm a simple soul. What's done is done up to now, but I am convinced we'd benefit from using Nwaneri a bit more from here. If we do bring him in and I'm proven soundly wrong by bad errors or poor performances I'll wear it. If we don't and the alternatives are shit I will be predictably annoying.

              goon Personally these two comments are contradictory to me. The fact that fans (myself included) want to use a 17yr old to turn things around for us tells me expectations are sky high.

              Nope. Those two comments are not contradictory. I already made myself clear in the final paragraph of the post you're quoting. Expectations would and should not be based on comparison between Nwaneri and a fantasy match-winner. Instead they would be between Nwaneri and the actually existing alternatives in our squad.

              Does anyone expect Jesus or Sterling to start pulling up trees out on the right at the moment? No. So on what basis would we expect too much from Nwaneri if he's preferred to them?

              • goon replied to this.

                  Burnwinter Arteta isn't infallible, but I trust him to manage a kid's growth given that we've managed Saka and Martinelli. He also has significantly more context than any of us here.

                  As a basic example, go to the hour before he Forest game and look at the complaints about the starting line-up. All the same guys who complain that Arteta doesn't rotate enough were the first one to complain that THIS SPECIFIC GAME was not the one to rotate. 😆 😆 😆 So when should we rotate to meet the gold standard of minutes for everyone? Oh, that rotated team won comfortably btw.

                      Clrnc except managing a football club (particularly managing for the long-term) isn't as binary a decision-making process. Suggesting it's that simple isn't a reflection of reality

                          Don Pacifico not sure if I get you but if the alternative is playing Mustafi or Kolalsinac as a CB you are sacrificing results.

                              Burnwinter Look, it is a relatively minor point and my snappiness was proportionate. I don't need a couple of non-idiotic interlocutors omitt-splaining basic facts to me.

                              They're all basic facts but I'm going to guess this has more to do with daredevils tone than me.

                              Burnwinter

                              And whatever you and others say, the very nature of coming on with 30 mins to go when you need a goal to save your premier league title campaign is a big burden to bear. As is expecting him to have a bigger impact, rightly or wrongly, than guys like Jesus, Sterling, Trossard, Kai and Martinelli, who were all being abused as not doing nearly enough.

                              Once again to be clear, I don't think earlier subs would be the end of the world and would have liked to see it myself. But I'm taking that those explanations at face value and I don't think it's as ludicrous to do so as being suggested.

                                    goon his age has got nothing to do with anything. If there's a 15 year old Messi regen that's way better than a 38 year old Saka for example it would be negligent not to play the better player.

                                    Claudius Saka was not managed by him at all. In fact Saka was brought into the team before his time. Martinelli was played way more before he came as well.

                                        Claudius you're setting up made-up opinions to argue against instead of what people have actually said.

                                        "Nwaneri should get more minutes."
                                        Claude: Oh, so you want to be like Barcelona and start the teenagers every game?

                                        "Saka should be subbed off when we lead by a few goals."
                                        Claude: Now Havertz, Rice, Partey and Martinelli are benched just like you wanted. If you're not happy with this, you're a hypocrite."

                                        Also, someone being negative to a lineup against Nottingham Forest does not equate to thinking we'll lose to them. No matter what lineup you pick out from our players, the team will be better on paper than what they can put out on the field with their best players. Being negative to a lineup equates to thinking another lineup would be better. In this case, most of the rotation was probably injuries since these players stayed home from international duty as well.

                                            goon And whatever you and others say

                                            It's not like I'm running around in a circle. It's the same thing I've said since his first appearances this season.

                                            At this point you're stretching with this claim that playing Nwaneri half an hour a week to give Saka or Ødegaard a bit of a break is placing a psychologically damaging expectation of winning matches on the lad.

                                            You've only gotta see how he plays to understand this. It's not a matter of placing greater expectations on him than on Jesus or Sterling, but of rewarding him for being the better option that he's proving himself to be.

                                              It's Jesus who has been unable to handle the weight of expectation, I think it's kinda sad some of you want to throw the man straight back to the dogs rather than shielding him from harm by selecting a brilliant teenager 😆

                                              QuincyAbeyie I'm just repeating what you are saying.
                                              By the way, what you never say is that Nwaneri actually played 30 minutes in a premier league game this season. Against Newcastle. And came back with half as many touches as he did in his 8 minute cameo this season. Was incognito that game. And I could sympathize with him that day.

                                                Don Pacifico

                                                It's classic Dunning Kruger, everything is always so simple when you're sitting a million miles away.

                                                People are outright dismissing a fundamental concept of Sports Science, and thinking that because Arteta has taken a certain approach with other players, he is consigned forever to repeating that same approach with every other player, like as if he has no capacity to take a different approach or learn from his past, or that players at different ages justify different approaches. He did it with White, so he must do it with every one else. Absolutely zero considerations involved.

                                                Arteta has presented a very plausible explanation for why he's being cautious with Nwaneri, and there's absolutely no reason for him to lie about it. What possible incentive is there in doing so? but accepting his explanation would involve admitting that perhaps the hasty criticism was misplaced, but we can't have that, so people keep digging even deeper holes, with absolutely zero evidence to the contrary. It's hilarious.

                                                Ethan Nwaneri is two minutes shy of equalling Lionel Messi's total season minutes at the same age, and it's only fucking November.

                                                    daredevil People love throwing in stuff like Dunning-Kruger and thinking they're the rational person on the curve until they're asked "oh, so you think it was stupid by Thiago Scuro to sanction the Balogun transfer? Could you please show me where you'd put yourself and him on this Dunning-Kruger graph?"

                                                    Since every person at every PL club is objectively more qualified for that job than me and you, it's "classic Dunning Kruger" whether you're disagreeing with Pep's football tactics or with United signing Antony for 90m, or with any referee decision.

                                                    The entire concept of an online football forum for a PL club includes having opinions about things even though all the people involved in making that thing happen are more qualified than you. Whether that thing has failed miserably or not.

                                                      Clrnc what I mean is that there are multiple factors that have to be considered when choosing who plays a match against West Ham at the weekend. I'm not saying anything that you don't know already but when you're picking your XI, it's not just a about beating West Ham, it's about what's going to give us the best chance to win the league over the course of the season, what's going to be optimal for win our CL tie midweek, what will build quality youth players so we're successful 5 years down the line (etc.). And that doesn't even take into account the intangibles like the mental conditioning of an individual player versus the collective mood of the squad.

                                                      My point ultimately is that even if you believe picking a player for a match may help us in the here and now, there are knock-on effects that a manager should be considering that impact our long-term performance.