Morning everybody. Now that the FA Cup third round is behind us we can officially turn our focus to the North London Derby. Spurs have had a number of injuries as of late, but it seems a bunch of them are conveniently going to be back and ready to go for Sunday. I don’t much care who they put out there though, I fancy us to continue doing what we’re doing and carry the momentum forward.
In the meantime, let’s talk about Albert Sambi Lokonga. Sambi has had an interesting journey since joining Arsenal. He grew up in the Anderlecht academy, working his way all the way into the first team and eventually earning the captaincy at the age of 21. This led to call ups into the Belgium national team set up, where he was personally vouched for to Arteta by former City man Vincent Kompany. After 69 appearances for Anderlecht he joined Arsenal in the summer of 2021 with a load of promise and potential.
Since then, it hasn’t quite come up roses unfortunately. He had a similar baptism by fire to Matteo Guendouzi, as he was thrown right into the squad on the opening day of the season in the now infamous 2-0 defeat to Brentford. He’d go on to make a total of 24 appearances across all competitions, including 19 in the Premier League. For a 21-22 year old in his first year in England, that’s not a small accomplishment by any stretch. With that said, there was a moment in the “All or Nothing” series that showed Sambi having a meal with teammates where he vocalized his frustration at no longer getting on the pitch. The immediate response was essentially “Everybody wants to play, it’s not just you, stop complaining and focus on working hard.”
Coming into this season, the hope was that Sambi could take a further step and be a valued member of the squad. An interview came out about how he was frustrated at the lack of opportunities at Arsenal, but supposedly realized training with a club of that stature was more beneficial than playing at a smaller club. Then another interview came off where he tore into Roberto Martinez and the Belgian national team setup for their handling of him. A theme seemed to be growing about Sambi’s frustration and ultimately a lack of elite mentality to make it at the top of the game.
The issue is that when he has gotten on the pitch, he simply hasn’t made the most of his opportunities. Granted, he is not a pure defensive midfielder and clearly struggled when asked to fill the Partey role. When he gets to play his more natural left eight role though, he still is not asserting himself. He’s timid, his positioning is very poor and he simply doesn’t do anything overly redeeming. In Monday’s match against Oxford we immediately improved when he came off the pitch. It’s another opportunity that has passed him by in a time where there simply aren’t going to be many more of them. We’re out of the League Cup, the next round of the FA Cup is going to be the full strength side against City and the Europa League is now in the knockouts. There’s going to be a fixture pile up, but it’s clear those midfield depth minutes will be going to Elneny long before Lokonga.
So the question remains – “What do Arsenal do with Sambi Lokonga?”
Three options remain – Keep him, loan him or sell him. In my opinion, the goal would be to bring in a central midfielder who can immediately make an impact. This then allows us to either loan or sell. His contract runs until June 2026, so there’s no need to panic on what to do. He still has the “youth” and “potential” tags, but those don’t last forever. My fear would be that we wait too long as we have in the past with players like Ainsley Maitland Niles and Calum Chambers, both of whom had nearly 20 million pound valuations plummet.
Vote: LOAN – Personally, my vote would be a loan to a team where he’ll immediately step into the XI. We’ll see what he’s made of and come the end of the season make a decision as to his future role at Arsenal Football Club. He looks a player who needs minutes for his development and that isn’t going to happen with us at the moment barring an injury crisis. I do think this means we need to bring somebody in to take his place in the squad though.
Let’s see what happens. Best case he turns it around and makes it at Arsenal. Ideally our worst case is we can recoup a good chunk of our investment. The move was 17.5 million Euros, so at this point you’d think we have a good chance of getting close to that.
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