Three months ago, Ian Wright appeared on an Arsenal video asking what he called “rhetorical” questions: “Do you want to create? Do you want to excite? Do you want to raise levels? Raise hairs? Raise the roof? Do you want to write a legacy? Do you want to realise those dreams? Do you want The Arsenal?”
Eberechi Eze walked into the frame, wearing Arsenal 10, turned to face the camera, smiled and said, “obviously.”
Last Sunday, on North London Derby debut, Eze scored a fantastic hat trick to lead Arsenal to a thumping 4-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur.
“Obviously.”
When that video was released, it had been an announcement that excited the Arsenal fans most in recent times, for not only was Eze one of the most exciting players in the Premier League, he was also a boyhood Arsenal fan. One of their own. And on derby debut he wrote his name into their history books.
Eze became just the fourth player to score a hat trick in the derby, and the first to score one since Alan Sunderland in December 1978. The numbers are remarkable, whichever way you look at it, but just look at the goals themselves and you’ll see each were worthy of a derby win by themselves.
The first came five minutes after Leandro Trossard’s opener and it was arguably the pick of the bunch. Declan Rice poked a hopeful Jurrien Timber cross into Eze’s feet, who collected it on the edge of the Spurs box… and then the magic began. A touch to trap it and as Rodrigo Bentancur and Palhinha closed in at speed, he took two more to squeeze the ball and himself in between them. Accelerating into space that opened up suddenly, he cocked his right leg and let fly between the closing Danso and Micky van de Ven, giving Guglielmo Vicario little chance, even if the shot was close to him and the big keeper got his fingertips to it.
The second was stunning in its timing, coming 36 seconds after kickoff in the second half, and because of that Eze would say it was his favourite of the lot. Timber played him in, Eze collecting it on the edge of the box once again, a touch with his left allowing him to sort his feet out before he placed it into the far bottom corner with a sweep of his weaker left. He was moving throughout it — going from off the ball run to trapping to shooting in one smooth motion.
After Richarlison scored a 35-yard golazo to give Spurs a glimpse back in, Eze’s third was needed to quell even the faint possibility of a comeback. It came on a counter, Mikel Merino dropping deep superbly to play in Trossard who immediately switched it back into the middle for Eze to run onto. This pass was a bit behind him, so he had to stop to collect it — yet again at the edge of the box, in the D, but a touch to trap it and he had placed the ball perfectly. A swing of his right and it curled into the near bottom corner: he’d hit it like it was a dead ball.
All three goals were underlined by the calmness of the finishing, in each scenario it’d have been easy for him to snatch at it, to hurry into the shot, to let the nerves of a fan in a derby get to him. That it didn’t speak volumes of the player he is. “That’s a good one, man,” he told Sky Sports with a nonchalance that was awesome.
He’d been released by Arsenal as a schoolboy, but his affection had never dimmed. A couple of years back, he’d said the time he was rejected by his club “was the hardest.” He said, “my dream was to play for them, so hearing them say no at 13, that was tough, and I remember training after being released and I couldn’t focus. I was crying while I was training. Man was [bawling].” On Sunday, he showed Arsenal just what he was capable of.
Manager Mikel Arteta spoke on his performance after the match, “After international duty, he had two days off, and after one day he wanted to train, and he wanted to improve, and he wanted to do extra practice, and he was asking me questions about this and that. When a player has such a talent, and his desire is at that level, then these things happen. And he fully deserves it.
“I’m so happy for him, because [from] the day that he came, he brought something else to the team. It’s a joy, it’s an aura that this team needed and hopefully it will give him a lot of confidence, to him and the team, that at any moment he can win us a game.” That aura shone through on Sunday, that aura won Arsenal the NLD in the most comprehensive manner in recent times.
So, for going from die-hard fan to forever-in-the-books superstar with a derby performance for the ages, Eberechi Eze takes our Moment of the Weekend.
