Nketiah provides the answer to Arsenal's striker problems with hat-trick against Sunderland

Stefan Bienkowski

• 21 Dec 2021 21:38 GMT
• 3 min read

Arsenal fans were left purring in sheer satisfaction on Tuesday night when their side dumped Sunderland out of the League Cup with a 5-1 victory against the League One side.

Mikel Arteta and the adoring home crowd would have been pleased with a number of individual and collective performances on the night, but nothing came close to the performance Eddie Nketiah put on for all to enjoy.

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In a rare start for the London club, the 22-year-old striker struck after just 17 minutes when he latched on to a rebound to knee the ball over the line from close-range and give Arsenal the lead.

After a second from Nicolas Pepe and then a delightful finish from Sunderland’s Nathan Broadhead before the break, Nketiah then kicked off the second half as he began the first with another goal.

This time, it came directly from a cross on the left flank, which Nketiah expertly tapped home with the deftest touch of his right boot as he ran across the face of the goal. Less than nine minutes later, the young striker had bagged his hat-trick when he capped off some exceptional skill from Pepe to back-heel the ball into the back of the net.

The right striker at the right time

A performance like that is worthy of almighty praise all by itself, but there’s no doubt that Arsenal fans were even more ecstatic to see the young player bag so many goals because of other issues within Arteta’s team.

Indeed, Arteta was once again without former captain and main talisman Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang due to his disciplinary issues at the club, while Alexandre Lacazette sat on the bench most likely wondering about the offers he’ll receive when the January window opens in a few days time.

Arsenal are in desperate need of a new striker and while Nketiah has yet to sign a new contract to commit his future to the club, Tuesday’s clash with Sunderland suggested that Arteta could certainly do a lot worse than to let the young player prove his worth in the Premier League.