Of all of football's many challenges, there may be none more difficult than making the leap from academy star to first-team regular.
Managers, more often than not, want proven quality, and it can be hard to convince them to take a punt on a youth player. There's just something reassuring about a player with a £30m price tag hanging around their neck, while throwing an academy player into the first team always feels like a bit of a risk.
Nobody understands this better than Eddie Nketiah. Despite making his debut for Arsenal so long ago that he probably swapped shirts with a pterodactyl, the striker remains a bit-part player at the Emirates.
While the departure of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the decline of Alexandre Lacazette were enough to provide Nketiah with a chance in the starting XI last season, his performances were not enough to convince manager Mikel Arteta not to spend £45m on Gabriel Jesus in the summer. Since then, the form of Jesus has relegated Nketiah back to substitute status, champing at the bit for a proper crack at some first-team football.
The problem for Nketiah is that his role at the club is quickly becoming unsustainable, both for him and for Arsenal. He is 23 now, and while that is still young in the grand scheme of things, it's also an age where a player's career trajectory is often defined. Put simply, he needs first-team football and he needs it now, or he will never reach the potential he undoubtedly possesses.
Nketiah's struggles in breaking into the first team present an issue for Arsenal too. The club tied him to a five-year contract reportedly worth £100,000-per-week back in the summer, having let his previous deal run down and not wanting to lose both him and Lacazette in the same window.
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This means the Gunners are now lumped with a hugely expensive striker they essentially only use when Jesus is unavailable. Arteta and Arsenal sporting director Edu Gaspar have done magnificent work rebuilding their squad, but their handling of Nketiah seems like a rare oversight from the duo.
Now, as Premier League football resumes in the wake of the World Cup, Arsenal are set to be without Jesus for at least a couple of months due to a knee injury the striker picked up playing for Brazil. While rumours abound that Arteta will look to sign a replacement, it seems more likely that Nketiah will be given a chance to lead the line once again. And he really, really needs to take this chance.
If Nketiah can grab a few goals during this period and be the difference between winning and drawing for Arsenal, it will change the way he is perceived as a player forever. For all the skill he seems to possess, Nketiah still has the image of a lightweight, an academy player finding his feet like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time.
He still snatches at chances, still makes mistakes a Premier League number nine cannot make. For a player who had such immense promise at a young age, he now feels like a player whose development has been stunted.
Clubs will always have good will for their home-grown talent, and Arsenal are no exception. However, top-tier football requires practical, unsentimental thinking. Nketiah cannot continue to contribute as little as he does on the salary he commands, and Arsenal cannot allow him to if they have aspirations of becoming a dominant force in English football once again. Failure to seize the opportunity in Jesus' absence could simply be one disappointment too far for Nketiah, forcing Arsenal to finally consider shipping him out. Make no mistake - he is in last-chance saloon territory now.
Source : 90min