Christos Tzolis: Arsenal's Key Signing for the Left Wing

Amid calls for a marquee signing, Arsenal might already have their missing piece – and he knows the Emirates better than most new arrivals.

From footnote to focal point

Almost five years ago, Christos Tzolis stepped onto the Emirates pitch as a teenager making his Premier League debut for Norwich. He started on the left wing. He barely laid a glove on Arsenal.

Back then, the story was all about Mikel Arteta’s survival. Arsenal had opened the season with three straight defeats, no goals, and the kind of noise that usually ends with a manager out of work. Lose to Norwich that day and the pressure could have swallowed him.

Tzolis didn’t manage a shot. Arsenal scraped a 1-0 win. Arteta stayed. The club changed.

Tzolis watched that transformation from the outside, then felt it up close last season with Club Brugge.

"I can say it was the most difficult team to attack against that I’ve played so far," he said earlier this summer. "We played against other big teams, but against Arsenal, we had the most difficulties to make clear chances."

Now he doesn’t have to solve Arteta’s defensive puzzle. He has to break down everyone else’s, wearing Arsenal colours.

The numbers that turned heads

The winger who left Norwich without a Premier League goal looks almost unrecognisable now. At 24, Tzolis arrives in north London as the form attacker in Arteta’s squad this summer.

Arsenal paid around £34million for him, and it is not hard to understand why. For Club Brugge last season, he produced 22 goals and 29 assists in all competitions – outrageous output, whatever the league.

Yes, there is context. Those numbers came in Belgium, ranked the seventh-strongest league in the world by Opta. The Premier League is a different beast.

But the trend is impossible to ignore. Tzolis has either scored or assisted in each of his last 15 competitive club appearances, racking up 25 goal involvements in that run. He doesn’t just sparkle; he delivers.

That, brutally, is where Arsenal’s attack fell short even in a title-winning campaign.

Gabriel Martinelli scored one Premier League goal all season. Only Viktor Gyokeres got beyond seven league goals. Martin Odegaard topped the assist charts with six. The system functioned, the team won, but too many forwards ran cold for too long.

Arteta’s style of play is analysed to death. What he also needs is ruthless efficiency from those in the final third. Tzolis has built his reputation on exactly that.

A different kind of weapon

Inside the club, Arsenal liked more than just the numbers. They saw a forward who can play across the line, comfortable on either foot, reminiscent in profile of Leandro Trossard. They saw a character Arteta could trust, someone expected to raise the technical ceiling of the attack.

But his real edge lies in the final action.

"He’s fitting, he’s a really intelligent boy and he has a massive quality which is when he's in the last 20-30 metres," Arteta said after the Community Shield. "He's so composed to pick people out around the box or to finish actions. I'm really impressed with him."

The reliability helps. In two years in Belgium, Tzolis missed only five matches, three of those due to illness. While Arsenal’s forwards have repeatedly been hit by injuries, he has simply kept playing – and kept producing.

He also arrived sharp. Two weeks of pre-season and a friendly with Club Brugge before his move meant he hit the ground running. The summer schedule has underlined why Arsenal moved for him.

An assist against Borussia Dortmund. Another against Real Betis. A first goal in red and white with a curling finish into the far corner against Girona.

Shades of Alexis

The Community Shield brought a step up in intensity and opposition. Tzolis rose with it.

His clever, cushioned header created Arsenal’s second goal for Kai Havertz. Later, he found space, carried the ball, and picked out Odegaard in the box for another assist.

Wearing the No17 shirt, gliding forward with tight touches, then cutting inside to make the decisive contribution, there were clear echoes of Alexis Sanchez in that move. The comparison is not lost on him.

“Actually, I knew that he wore the number 17," Tzolis said when he joined. "I watched a lot of football and he was a top player for Arsenal, as a left winger always.

“He’s one of the players I looked up to when I was younger. And also, I see some similarities with him. But it’s not the reason I took the number 17.

“It’s nice (though). Alexis Sanchez had number 17 - so I hope I will have the same success.”

That is a heavy name to be linked with on that flank. Arsenal, though, are acting like they believe he can handle it.

A clear message on the left

Arsenal’s openness to sell Gabriel Martinelli – and Arteta leaving him out of the Community Shield squad altogether – is a blunt show of faith in Tzolis as the first-choice left winger, at least for now.

That side of the pitch has nagged at Arteta for several seasons. The team has leaned heavily on Bukayo Saka and Odegaard operating from the right, while the left has rarely matched that level of consistent threat.

Riccardo Calafiori’s arrival at left-back changes the picture. With the Italian stepping high up the pitch and Tzolis ahead of him, Arsenal may finally be finding a more natural balance between both flanks.

They still want more firepower. A marquee attacking addition remains on the agenda, now or in a future window. Eberechi Eze, for instance, can operate from the left if required. If Martinelli stays beyond the deadline, he offers another option and a different profile to compete with Tzolis, especially with a more progressive passer like his Brazil team-mate Bruno Guimaraes behind him in midfield.

But at this moment, the shirt is Tzolis’s to lose.

The marquee question

Arsenal’s forwards, almost as a group, have been streaky. Hot for a month, quiet for two. Availability issues have not helped. Neither has the lack of a guaranteed, season-long supply of goals and assists from the wide positions.

Tzolis does not arrive as the man to build the entire attack around. When he signed, the plan was still to bring in a bigger-name forward alongside him. That may yet happen and could squeeze his minutes.

Right now, though, while the noise grows around potential blockbusters, the answer on the left might already be in the building.

Arsenal need most of their attackers to go up a level if they are to defend their title. For Christos Tzolis, the challenge is simpler: can he just keep doing what he’s been doing, only this time under the brightest lights in English football?