Arsenal Legend Urges Eddie Nketiah To Stay At The Club

Arsenal legend Paul Merson believes Eddie Nketiah should sign a new contract…

Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson has urged Eddie Nketiah to commit his future to the club after the former England U21 international’s hat-trick saw us qualify for the Carabao Cup semi-final, he said on Sky Sports.

Nketiah has rejected multiple contract offers from the club and is free to sign a pre-contract agreement with a foreign outfit as early as next month.

Should the 22-year-old decide to see his contract out and move to a domestic club, we’ll be entitled to a compensation fee – the amount of which will be decided by a tribunal.

Mikel Arteta has made no secret of his admiration for Nketiah and even, weeks into his tenure as Arsenal boss, decided to terminate his loan move to Leeds United prematurely

However, with no European football this season, Nketiah has seen his chances to impress diminish with the experience of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette preferred.

Despite that, Merson believes that Arsenal is still the best place to be for the striker.

“My advice to him is to stick at Arsenal for two or three more years,” Merson told Sky Sports.

“You could go to a bottom half Premier League team working off scraps. You have to weigh all that stuff up.”

With the futures of Aubameyang and Lacazette looking short-term, coupled with the likely return to European football for the club, Nketiah would get more minutes if he were to stay next season.

Whether or not he’d be satisfied with serving as a back-up to an experienced striker and relying on cup football to start games remains an entirely different matter.

Regardless, it would be naive as a club to rely on the former Chelsea academy product as our main striker for an entire campaign if our ambitions are to challenge at the top table of English and European football.

From the outside, it does seem that Nketiah has made up his mind and will depart in the summer.