Gunners key man’s exit from the Emirates on the table amid transfer links to Oil Money Club.
The future of Emile Smith Rowe has been continuously discussed across the past couple of months, catalysed by the links to Chelsea at the end of the summer window. Chelsea were understood to have made an approach to the Gunners about a move for Smith Rowe but this was rebuffed and no formal offer was ever made.
Despite the rebuttal, Mikel Arteta has not exactly been too keen to start Smith Rowe, even in the absence of Gabriel Martinelli for a short time. Even when both the Brazilian and Leandro Trossard were not available for the trip to Bournemouth, Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah were preferred over the Hale End graduate.
This has led to plenty more speculation over Smith Rowe’s future, and now the first link to another club ahead of January has emerged. According to The Northern Echo, Newcastle United are discussing the potential of a move for the 23-year-old.
Newcastle have already taken away one of the club’s Hale Enders in the form of Joe Willock. The Gunners secured a tidy £25million package for Willock in one of the most financially beneficial deals of the club’s history.
Move which see academy graduates like Alex Iwobi and Folarin Balogun garner serious fees look great on the books and can allow for greater freedom to reinvest in the market. January could be an important time for Arsenal to invest themselves with links to Ivan Toney and Pedro Neto remaining steadfast.
The loss of Smith Rowe however would certainly be trickier for many fans to support. He has such an attachment to Arsenal and unlike Willock managed to establish himself as a first-team regular for quite some time before a series of injury issues and the rise of Gabriel Martinelli and the signing of Leandro Trossard.
However, should we truly fear Smith Rowe leaving? He’s a player with great quality and potential there is little doubt about that but it is hard to see where he fits into Mikel Arteta’s system and the manager simply is not using him enough to justify keeping a potentially expensive asset on the bench.
Would it not be better to have a player of similar or greater quality available compared to Smith Rowe that Arteta would want to use? The answer might not be nice but it should be fairly obvious
