Marseille head coach Habib Beye defended his decision to call Ethan Nwaneri on the bench for the side’s clash with Nice, claiming the forward must ‘fall down 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 primary 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 an excellent strike within the side’s 3-1 victory over Lens in Ligue 1.
But Nwaneri has didn’t kick on within the intervening months, making just two further starts within 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 assist the teen’s situation either. Roberto De Zerbi left his role as manager just weeks after the attacker’s arrival, subsequently taking up the reins at Tottenham.
De Zerbi was replaced at Marseille by former Newcastle and Senegal defender Beye, who remains to be yet handy Nwaneri a single start in any competition.
With Nwaneri starting on the substitutes bench for an eleventh game in succession against Nice on Sunday, the newly appointed Marseille boss provided some insight into the explanations for his decision.
‘He’s a high quality player, but he has to offer us far more in his day-to-day commitment,’ Beye told L1+.
‘Other players gave far more.’
Nwaneri was left as an unused substitute in the competition, 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 within 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 in the beginning of the month after Marseille had suffered a 2-1 defeat away to Monaco.
‘Ethan has great qualities, he’s an amazing talent who must adapt to the intensity of Ligue 1,’ Beye explained.
‘We saw that when he got here on against Lille, he scored but after we analyse his performance overall there are still points of his game that must be much stronger by way of counter-pressing, his defensive efforts to win the ball back.
‘He looks as if the best substitute in Mason [Greenwood]’s absence but we even have the chance to vary our system and our playmaking, so we’ve several selections and selection with quality players.
‘Ethan is a young player who needs to grasp, arriving at Marseille, he comes from the Premier League, from an enormous team within the Premier League but he also arrives in Ligue 1 at a really, very high level club and inevitably the variation takes a bit time.
‘What’s excellent 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 got here around, I had already stated players shouldn’t be going out on loan after we’re competing in all 4 competitions,’ ex-Arsenal and England full-back Nigel Winterburn told PariuriX.com when asked about Nwaneri’s departure on loan.
‘You retain all of them unless a player is absolutely asking to exit on loan. You don’t do anything. You never know what’s going to occur with the squad.
‘We let Nwaneri exit on loan and abruptly, Merino gets injured, so that you must watch out.’
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