Marseille boss slams Ethan Nwaneri again as Arsenal forward is left as unused substitute

Marseille head coach Habib Beye defended his decision to name Ethan Nwaneri on the bench for the side’s clash with Nice, claiming the forward needs to ‘give way more in his day-to-day commitment’.

Arsenal sent Nwaneri on loan to Marseille in January with a view to securing the 19-year-old regular first-team minutes after he had struggled to nail down game-time in the first half of the season.

The highly rated teenager – a product of Arsenal’s Hale End academy – enjoyed a dream debut across the Channel, doubling Marseille’s lead with a superb strike in the side’s 3-1 victory over Lens in Ligue 1.

But Nwaneri has failed to kick on in the intervening months, making just two further starts in the French top flight, with six of his nine league appearances coming off the bench.

The uncertainty and instability above Nwaneri at Marseille has done little to help the youngster’s situation either.

Roberto De Zerbi left his role as manager just weeks after the attacker’s arrival, subsequently taking over the reins at Tottenham.

De Zerbi was replaced at Marseille by former Newcastle and Senegal defender Beye, who is still yet to hand Nwaneri a single start in any competition.

With Nwaneri starting on the substitutes bench for an 11th game in succession against Nice on Sunday, the newly appointed Marseille boss provided some insight into the reasons for his decision.

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‘He’s a quality player, but he has to give us way more in his day-to-day commitment,’ Beye told L1+.

‘Other players gave way more.’
Nwaneri was left as an unused substitute in the contest, which ended 1-1 after Elye Wahi cancelled out Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s opener with a late penalty to silence Marseille’s Stade Velodrome.

The result ensured Marseille remained sixth in the Ligue 1 table, three points behind fifth-placed Rennes ahead of their trip to Nantes next weekend.

Nwaneri received a similarly strong warning from Beye at the start of the month after Marseille had suffered a 2-1 defeat away to Monaco.

‘Ethan has great qualities, he’s a great talent who needs to adapt to the intensity of Ligue 1,’ Beye explained.

‘We saw that when he came on against Lille, he scored but when we analyse his performance overall there are still aspects of his game that need to be much stronger in terms of counter-pressing, his defensive efforts to win the ball back.

‘He seems like the ideal replacement in Mason [Greenwood]’s absence but we also have the opportunity to change our system and our playmaking, so we have several choices and choice with quality players.

‘Ethan is a young player who needs to understand, arriving at Marseille, he comes from the Premier League, from a big team in the Premier League but he also arrives in Ligue 1 at a very, very high level club and inevitably the adaptation takes a little time.

‘What’s very good is that he scored for the national team.

Sometimes with the national team, you get playing time, and that’s very positive for us.’
Arsenal’s decision to loan Nwaneri out to Marseille has received some criticism amongst the fanbase, especially after Mikel Merino suffered a potentially season-ending foot injury.

‘When January came around, I had already stated players shouldn’t be going out on loan when we’re competing in all four competitions,’ ex-Arsenal and England full-back Nigel Winterburn told PariuriX.com when asked about Nwaneri’s departure on loan.

‘You keep them all unless a player is really asking to go out on loan.

You don’t do anything.

You never know what’s going to happen with the squad.

‘We let Nwaneri go out on loan and all of a sudden, Merino gets injured, so you need to be careful.’
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