Arsenal transfers: Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe need to leave Gunners to reach their full potential

The Hale End products have had their moments, but now with limited opportunities, playing elsewhere is key to their personal progression

As Arsenal's rise to Premier League contention began last season, it rather seemed that the Gunners had stumbled on an ideal formula for building an elite squad without Champions League revenue flowing into the coffers. Their Hale End academy had produced one of the world's best young talents in Bukayo Saka but he was merely at the vanguard of what the then 17-year-old told this column was a generation of players ready to "take on the world."Arsenal's attack was to be rounded out by homegrown prospects, two of whom are now full England internationals, in Emile Smith Rowe, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah.

It is the dream scenario for any club, that you can round out your squad for nothing with quality players whose deep connection to their team binds supporters even closer to the cause. In the history of the Emirates Stadium nothing has inspired delirium quite like Nelson's last-gasp winner against Bournemouth. It just hits different when it comes from one of your own.

For two of Arsenal's bright young things, however, it is not hitting anywhere near as often as they would like. So far this season Smith Rowe, disrupted by injury once more, has played just 118 minutes, Nelson a mere 102. Between them they cannot match the minutes of Thomas Partey, a man with a quarter hour of club football to his name since August. These are hardly the minutes of players who round out the squad, they belong to those who only see the pitch when desperate times call for the most desperate of measures.

Even that is not always enough to see them enter the pitch. Chasing an equalizer against Fulham, Arsenal desperately needed a player who could maneuver through the tight spaces the hosts had conceded between the lines in the closing stages, someone whose first thought when he got the ball would be to push it forward, giving and going in an instant. In other words, they needed the best version of Smith Rowe. No version of him saw the pitch. As has so often been the case in the three and a half years since his last Premier League start, Nelson was asked to deliver on the Hail Mary plays. This time he could not as an exhausted Saka tried to hammer his way through.

The defeat on New Year's Eve was the latest in a string of games where Arsenal's left flank has not really clicked. Like Saka on the other flank, Gabriel Martinelli betrays the tell tale signs of a forward who has not had a rest in too long. His alternate, Leandro Trossard, is struggling for form and does not offer anything like the straight line burst of Arteta's regular starters. Kai Havertz's form has notably improved but his interpretation of the left eight role is particularly low touch.

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Arsenal are crying out for fresh, fast legs in attack and yet Arteta is only fleetingly turning to two options who could both give him something different on the left in particular. What is particularly curious about that is how the club's actions do not reflect the message they laid out to these two players in the summer.

At the end of a 2022-23 season that had begun with injury but ended with Smith Rowe fitter than ever before, struggling to get meaningful minutes at a time where every kick mattered, Arsenal's No. 10 was informed in no uncertain terms that he would not be leaving the club. Suitors from the Premier League and beyond had had their eye on the 23-year-old but interest cooled after his initial meetings with the club hierarchy. Chelsea mulled testing Arsenal's stance but no offer was made from them or anyone else. Arsenal had cooled the market for Smith Rowe themselves. That despite the fact that Kai Havertz and Fabio Vieira, a player who sources say is well admired by Arteta for his training ground work, appeared to be ahead of the homegrown No. 10 on the depth chart.

Meanwhile, Nelson was at the end of the contract he had signed in 2018. AC Milan were keen to bring him to Serie A, Brighton offered £80,000 a week to secure him on a free. Arsenal blew that out of the water with a deal that, according to CBS Sports sources, is not only worth £100,000 a week but comes with significant bonuses when he is involved in Champions League wins. There is an argument to be made that handing him that contract, hardly beyond the financial realms of a top Premier League club, Arsenal preserved Nelson's value rather than lose him for nothing. There is validity to that but the club still made a £20 million commitment in wage terms to a player who Arteta only turns to in desperation.

Playing so infrequently is doing nothing to boost the value of Smith Rowe or Nelson, who as academy graduates who would be booked as pure profit in the Arsenal accounts. In the summer of 2021, the Gunners turned down a £25 million offer from Aston Villa for Smith Rowe, intimating that triple the price wouldn't be expected. Given how he is clearly not a key part of Arteta's plans, it is fair to question whether Arsenal would even get an offer worth that original mark come the summer.

The path for Nelson and Smith Rowe appears clear, leading away from the clubs they joined at nine and 10. They are just yet to take the first step on it. CBS Sports revealed last month that Wolves and Sevilla want to loan the former while West Ham are also interested. Nelson, however, is believed to be skeptical as to whether the right move would emerge for him this month. Arsenal are not looking to loan him out, changing their mind would require a sizeable loan fee or transfer obligation. Smith Rowe, similarly, is viewed as more likely to stay than go this month. The financial reality at the Emirates Stadium, where Financial Fair Play and Profit and Sustainability Regulations look more intimidating after events at Everton, are similar at many other clubs and there may not be a suitor for either who can offer Arsenal money they can reinvest.

Whether it is in January or the summer, though, it seems that the end is coming for two of Hale End's own. They won't get to take on the world by Saka's side but their sales might at least afford Arsenal the funds to secure support for their leading man. Hardly the role these talented youngsters would have been aspiring to over more than a decade but it is surely the move they need to make if they are to fulfil that much-heralded potential.