The dazzling young winger Arsenal could sign to replace Gabriel Martinelli
Gabriel Martinelli may not be an Arsenal player for much longer - but have the Gunners already found his replacement?
Over the course of the summer transfer window, one of the more interesting talking points in North London was whether Arsenal might sell left winger Gabriel Martinelli. Struggling to replicate the explosive form of his breakout 2022/23 season, the Brazilian was cutting an increasingly peripheral figure. In the end, Arsenal kept hold of him, but the arrival of Eberechi Eze signalled their dwindling faith in Martinelli.
The 2025/26 season has not erased those doubts. There have been goals in the Champions League against Athletic Club and Olympiacos and a crucial equaliser against Manchester City, but his broader impact on games has been inconsistent and he still doesn’t look like the scintillating winger Arsenal thought they had on their hands a couple of years ago – nor does Mikel Arteta appears to be convinced, given that Martinelli hasn’t started any of the last four league matches.
It may not be coincidental, then, that Arsenal are once again being linked with another left winger – rising Juventus and Turkey star Kenan Yildiz. According to Tuttosport, Arsenal had scouts in Turin to watch him play AC Milan this weekend, and it’s far from the first time that the Gunners have been connected to the talented 20-year-old in the gossip columns. But would Yildiz be an upgrade on Martinelli, and could it really be time to move on?
Why Arsenal might want to replace Gabriel Martinelli with Kenan Yildiz
When Martinelli really made his mark in 2022/23, he scored 15 goals in 36 Premier League appearances from a total of just 9.1 expected goals – meaning he was scoring 1.65 goals for every goal that the ‘average’ top flight player would have managed. Since then, he has scored just 15 more in 74 matches from 14.5xG.
Now 24 and no longer a breakthrough prospect, Martinelli has gone from a league standout to the middle of the pack, and that’s just for goalscoring. Compared to other wingers in the ‘big five’ leagues, Martinelli is in the bottom 20% for chance creation and the bottom 25% for assists (eight in those same 74 games), all while struggling with his dribbling.
Martinelli has his strengths and his production makes it plain that he isn’t a bad player by any means, but he isn’t playing like a starting winger for a potential title contender and arguably hasn’t done for some time. Eze’s arrival, along with Leandro Trossard’s contract extension, were the first nails being hammered into the coffin. If Arsenal do indeed sign Yildiz, that could be the last.
Yildiz, as it happens, isn’t necessarily a better goalscorer on paper. He scored seven time in Serie A for Juventus last season – one fewer than Martinelli – and registered four assists, the same as his apparent rival. But that owes much to the way that Igor Tudor has used Yildiz.
Playing in a noticeably deeper role while still operating on the left, Yildiz has converted expected goals into actual ones at a rate of 1.59 goals/xG since the start of the 2023/24 season, comfortably better than Martinelli over the same period.
Where Martinelli largely plays in a highly advanced position looking for balls over the shoulder of the full-back, Yildiz is operating deeper, as a playmaker as well as a final-third threat, and the result is fewer chances to score but a statline which suggests that he would be at least as effective as Martinelli if asked to play in a similar style – combined with a much broader set of skills.
Yildiz is a vastly superior passer of the ball and creative force more broadly, generating an average of 4.50 shooting chances for his team-mates per match over the last year while Martinelli languishes at just 2.84. At the same time, Yildiz has succeeded in beating opposing players on the run 53.2% of the time since breaking into the Juventus squad while Martinelli, whose technique does not necessarily match his admittedly startling pace, has managed to beat his man just 32.7% of the time, a worryingly poor number for any winger who needs to win on the dribble.
Yildiz, at just 24, has time to grow and round out his skill set but it already appears that he has more high-end attributes than Martinelli, even if he lacks the Brazilian’s raw speed. There is plenty of evidence out there to suggest that Martinelli isn’t going to get much better and that Yildiz could perhaps outstrip him in years to come. Small wonder that the scouts were watching in the Allianz Stadium over the weekend.
Will Arsenal replace Gabriel Martinelli?
Arsenal, of course, are unlikely to jettison Martinelli before the end of the season and he will have time to turn things around and win back some more starting minutes. But if he continues to dabble in mediocrity come next June, then it’s easy to see a world in which Arsenal opt to make a change.
Bayern Munich are reportedly interested, and in 2026 Martinelli will be into the last two years of his contract, assuming that Arsenal choose to trigger a one-year extension clause in his current deal. That’s typically the point at which players are sold while their value remains high. It’s not hard to imagine this being his last year at the Emirates.
As for whether Yildiz would be the replacement, that’s a trickier question to answer. He has been linked with Arsenal repeatedly over the past year or so but Chelsea have been mentioned plenty too, while Liverpool and Manchester United have had their names put next to the 20-year-old’s in the gossip columns on a few occasions, too.
In short, Yildiz has become something of a darling of the rumour mill, particularly in the Italian press, and there are so many speculative stories concerning his future out there that it’s hard to tell which might have any basis in reality – although his name comes up so much these days that one wonders if a hyperactive agent might be involved, a sign that someone is trying to engineer a lucrative transfer, at least.
It isn’t clear how much Juventus might charge for Yildiz, who is contracted up until 2029, and there is plenty of time for any scouts watching him now to be impressed by other (perhaps cheaper) players.
Yildiz is a perfectly plausible transfer target for Arsenal, but he won’t be the only winger who represents a potential upgrade on Martinelli, a player who has struggled to deliver on his evident early promise. Don’t be surprised if this is a story that we see coming around more often as next summer approaches.