Eddie Nketiah Credits Influence Of Arsenal Legend After Dream Home Debut

By The Editor
on 25th October 2017

Eddie Nketiah worked with Henry in the youth team…

Arsenal hot prospect Eddie Nketiah praised the influence of Gunners icon Thierry Henry after he netted a brace on his home debut to put us through to the next round of the League Cup.

Nketiah was coached by Henry in the U18s before the Frenchman took up his position at Sky which meant he couldn’t combine the roles, and our record goalscorer sent his own message to the teenager through Twitter.

What a night for @EddieNketiah9. So happy for him and not surprised at all!

— Thierry Henry (@ThierryHenry) October 24, 2017

Henry was known to work exclusively with the young forwards during that period, though Nketiah showed signs that he could surpass the ‘King of Highbury’ in the heading department.

The 18-year-old reserved special praise for his former coach and spoke of his desire to reach a fraction of the levels his mentor did.

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“[I grew up watching] Thierry, Dennis Bergkamp, Ian Wright – they were all great strikers and attacking players and I watched them a lot, especially Thierry,” he told Arsenal Player.

“When he was working with us I used to work with him quite a bit on and off the field, so I’m just trying to emulate even a little bit of what they can do, that would a dream come true for me.”

With a number of top clubs still left in the Carabao Cup, Nketiah may get another chance to make a significant impact in the quarter-finals.

In a competition we’ve never won under Arsene Wenger, going all the way while keeping our traditional method of blooding youngsters will certainly be satisfying.