Forget the petty petition - Arsenal signing Chelsea's Noni Madueke for £50m makes perfect sense

The news that Arsenal are closing in on the signing of Chelsea winger Noni Madueke hasn’t gone down well with every Gunners fan – at least, not based on the fact that over a thousand have now signed a change.org petition entitled ‘No To Madueke’ which claims that the club’s fans “deserve better”.

It’s hard to imagine that the petition will spark a particularly fierce debate in parliament, but it would seem some supporters are somewhat riled by the idea. Whether it’s the relatively steep asking price of £50m, the memories of recent Chelsea-to-Arsenal deals with modest returns such as Kai Havertz and Raheem Sterling, the rivalry between the two sides or simply the perception that Madueke isn’t the kind of player who will make the difference in a title run, the phrase ‘unimpressed’ seems to fairly describe some of the feelings that are running high around the Emirates.

But would signing Madueke be such a bad deal? How does he compare to the players Arsenal currently have on their books? Would signing Madueke help them to win the title for the first time in over 20 years, or would it be – as one American signatory to the petition describes it – a “gross misuse of funds”?

Noni Madueke has his faults – but he would improve Arsenal

It’s reasonable to say that Madueke’s second full season at Stamford Bridge didn’t go quite as smoothly as it might have. Enzo Maresca dropped him from the squad twice, his form waxed and waned, and he seemed to struggle at times in the slightly wider role in which his new coach deployed him.

Still, Maresca trusted him enough to hand him 27 league starters in a deep squad and to have him on the pitch for the entirety of the Europa Conference League final against Real Betis. He scored seven goals in the Premier League and contributed three assists despite some occasionally wayward finishing, and bagged a quite brilliant hat-trick against Wolves. There were ups and downs, but the heights of those ups was impressive.

And while seven goals in 32 games may represent a steady rather than spectacular return, on a minute-by-minute basis Madueke was still more dangerous in front of goal – and got into more goal-scoring positions – than Leandro Trossard.

In fact, it’s hard to find too much to separate Madueke and Trossard’s 2024/25 output based on the stats, but while the gap in terms of production in the final third, chance creation, passing and even defensive output is minimal, Madueke tends to come out ahead. Given that Trossard was often the first alternative on the right when Bukayo Saka was unavailable last season, Madueke seems like a solid improvement to the squad in that one area.

That’s made even clearer when you consider that there is one area in which Madueke is comfortably better than Trossard – his ability to carry the ball downfield and into dangerous areas. Madueke completed well over double the number of long-distance dribbles that Trossard did over the last year of football, beat more defenders one-on-one and, crucially, received far more passes in advanced areas than his Belgian counterpart.

When you also add in the fact that Trossard is naturally right-footed while Madueke favours his left, it’s fairly clear that Madueke is both a more natural deputy for Saka and a player whose attributes better suit Mikel Arteta’s relatively direct style. In particular, his ability to beat defenders one-on-one on both sides of the ball – something Saka himself excels at – could make a major difference.

There are downsides, of course. Madueke was undeniably inconsistent and it was hard to miss the fact that many of his weaker performances came against the Premier League’s best teams. His finishing was relatively poor and his seven goals came from 9.6xG, suggesting room for improvement. But he is also just 23, and room for improvement is something he undeniably has.

Of course, all of this is ignoring the even younger elephant in the room – Ethan Nwaneri. The teenage winger has much to learn and only really thrived in a limited number of his starts during the second half of last season, but his forward progress has been rapid and his immense talent undeniable. There is a concern that signing Madueke simply puts an unjustified barrier in front of Nwaneri’s opportunities for minutes.

But for one season, perhaps two or three, Madueke will probably be better than Nwaneri, who still has a great deal of development ahead of him. There is a reason that Nwaneri was mostly sat on the bench during England’s European Under-21 Championship run in Slovakia in June, and a reason that Arteta seems to want a more substantive option on the wing right now. Nwaneri will be a brilliant player, but Madueke is surely more impactful at this moment.

Is Noni Madueke really worth £50m?

Buying Madueke would, ultimately, improve Arsenal. The question is perhaps more whether he improves them enough to be worth the £50m that Chelsea are allegedly demanding for his services – not that it is yet clear that Arsenal will pay that much.

It’s also fair to ask why Chelsea would sell Madueke if he was good enough to make the difference in a title run, although that’s a question which somewhat ignores Chelsea’s chaotic approach to the transfer market. A team constantly in flux, they are forced to find players to sell every summer to fund their latest spending spree, while the expensive addition of young talents like Kendry Páez and Estevão Willian means that they need to create space in the squad in order to give them minutes.

Still, the fact that Chelsea are plainly prepared to sell their first-choice right winger suggests that they simply believe that selling him for anything close to £50m represents good value. It certainly represents a profit on the £29m they spent to sign him from PSV in January 2023.

£50m normally buys a team a first-rate player, a regular starter who can be expected to be a significant contributor week in and week out. Given that Madueke would assuredly be playing second fiddle to Saka and wouldn’t necessarily even be picked ahead of Nwaneri every game, it’s reasonable to query whether such a significant investment is justified.

Madueke can also play on the left wing, as he did in the Conference League Final and in two of Chelsea’s group stage games in the Club World Cup, but Arteta would prefer to have a right-footed player on that side and seems likely to add either Rodrygo or Eberechi Eze in that position too.

Between a new left winger, Gabriel Martinelli, Saka, Trossard and Nwaneri, one would have thought that Arsenal were well-covered out wide, certainly to the extent that spending £50m, even on a young and talented England international, feels like a luxury.

That said, Arteta will be keenly aware of the deleterious impact that the time Saka missed through injury had on Arsenal’s chances of winning silverware last season. The winger was run into the ground for three straight years, starting practically every match he was available for, and tiredness, tweaks and strains finally, inevitably, turned into a major injury and months during which Arsenal lost their best attacking player.

Nwaneri wasn’t ready to replace Saka, and likely still isn’t, while Trossard wasn’t a straightforward fit for the right-sided role. Madueke, therefore, is not only a fine back-up should Saka go down again but also a rotational option whose presence allows Arteta to rest Saka’s legs far more frequently, reducing the workload on Arsenal’s best player.

In that respect, signing Madueke makes perfect sense, and greatly improves the chances that Arsenal will have Saka available when it matters most. It’s a deal which would add both strength and depth in a key area. It’s also a deal which brings a very talented player to the Emirates.

Is it a luxury purchase at £50m? Arguably. But new sporting director Andrea Berta will know whether it’s a splash that the Gunners can afford without leaving them short of the funds required to sign a new winger, a new defender (or two) and – hopefully – Viktor Gyökeres.

Arsenal have been on the cusp of the title for several seasons now without having the quality and depth to get over the line. Madueke brings them slightly closer to the goal. If the money spent doesn’t impact the rest of the club’s transfer activity or put them into range of a PSR breach, then it’s a good deal. Certainly, it’s not one worth signing an angry petition over.