Eddie Nketiah Reveals Why He Extended His Contract With Arsenal

Arsenal centre forward, Eddie Nketiah, said he decided to extend his contract with the north London-based Premier League club due to his love for the side.

Nketiah was once in the Chelsea youth system before he moved to the Arsenal academy on July 1, 2015, when he was 16 years old.

Nketiah who is currently 24-year-old gained promotion to Arsenal’s senior team on January 1, 2019, but couldn’t eatable himself in the club’s first eleven.

Due to his lack of game time, the one-capped England international decided to move to Leeds United on loan from August 2019 to January 2020. While at Leeds United, the Ghanaian-born striker managed to score five goals in 19 games for the EFL Championship side.

Since the 2017-2018 season to the time of writing this report, Eddie Nketiah has played 142 times for the Gunners and scored 34 goals in all competitions.

Despite struggling to play regularly in the past couple of seasons, the youngster agreed to extend his contract with Arsenal on June 18, 2022 after initially rejecting a contract extension offer from the club.

That decision surprised most fans due to his second-fiddle role at the club.

However, his faith in the system has paid off as he has suddenly become the goto striker for coach Mikel Arteta this season, partly because of Gabriel Jesus’s injury woes.

So far this season, Eddie Nketiah has played 11 times in all competitions in which he scored two goals and provided one assist.

Due to his consistency in Arsenal’s squad, Nketiah finally landed his first international appearance for England on October 13, 2023, against Australia in an international friendly which ended 1-0 in favour of England.

In an interview with FourFourTwo, Nketiah said: “I signed a new deal at Arsenal as I love the club. London’s home… but I’ve been an Arsenal fan all my life, and that played a big part”.

“Talking to the manager and the plans he had for me… I knew I wanted to learn, develop, help Arsenal”.

Note that Eddie Nketiah’s current contract with Arsenal will expire on June 30, 2027.