Manchester United legend Gary Neville has made a U-turn on new Arsenal signing Noni Madueke after seeing his performances for the Gunners and England.
Arsenal received plenty of criticism for making Madueke one of eight new signings at the Emirates Stadium this summer with the former Chelsea winger underwhelming at Stamford Bridge.
His seven goals and three assists in 32 Premier League matches last season at Chelsea didn’t get many Arsenal fans excited when they spent an initial £48.5m on the England international.
However, his performances since joining have been encouraging, particularly on the right-hand side for England in two World Cup qualifiers.
Neville has been so impressed that he thinks Mikel Arteta could consider moving Bukayo Saka out to the left more this season to accommodate Madueke on the right.
Neville said on The Overlap: “I want to talk about Noni Madueke. I’ll be honest with you, I’d seen him play quite a lot at Chelsea and when Arsenal signed him I thought, I can see why Chelsea sort of let him go.
“I tell you – what a different player at Arsenal, and in the England games in the last few weeks.
“He’s obviously a lot better on the right and that was clear when [Bukayo] Saka went off injured the other week so I wonder if Saka could play on the left a bit more this season.
“Arsenal have a few problems on the left with [Gabriel] Martinelli struggling a bit so maybe Saka could go back there.
“Madueke looks one hell of a player on the right, some of the runs he made were really top level. I was looking at it as a full-back and thinking, ‘oh, I didn’t know he had that’.
“He’s the young kid so maybe Saka, the experienced one, moves over. Saka is the better player, let’s be clear, but they could swap during games.
“Madueke got some stick when he joined Arsenal, some of the fans were really questioning it, but he looks good.”
But any move to change Saka’s position in the Arsenal team would be “hard” for Arteta, according to Neville’s fellow pundit Jamie Carragher.
Carragher said: “Moving your best player is hard. The problem Saka might have with Madueke is when they’re both with England.
“Hear me out here. I actually think Madueke has been the best player under Thomas Tuchel. It’s not been great but Madueke has played well, he’s been probably the best player.
“It will be interesting to see when Saka comes back for England rather than Arsenal. I’ve always like Madueke, you don’t see many wingers are big and strong.”