While Arsenal lost further ground on Premier League leaders Liverpool by drawing at Stamford Bridge at the weekend, one man they let go this summer had no problem sealing all three points for his team in a different part of London.
Emile Smith Rowe was on the scoresheet in Saturday’s 2-0 win at Crystal Palace and continues to go from strength to strength with Fulham.
After a third man-of-the-match performance in Fulham colours, many at Arsenal will be left questioning whether an error was made in letting the Croydon-born creator leave in August.
In part because of Martin Odegaard’s recent spell out with an ankle injury, Arsenal have sorely lacked someone able to pick the lock.
Without Odegaard they looked blunt and the performances of Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli - who Smith Rowe was fighting for game time last term - have been inconsistent.
Arsenal chiefs may well have glanced south of the river at Smith Rowe’s early exploits at Fulham and acknowledged how his presence could have helped.
Marco Silva’s pitch to Smith Rowe on how he would use him was key to his decision to join Fulham. Silva explained he would make Smith Rowe the leading playmaker in his team, keeping his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation and making the 24-year-old its creative focal point.
And so it has come to pass. Smith Rowe has five goal contributions in 11 Premier League games for Fulham, who are seventh and flying thanks in no small part to his impact.
He can even consider himself unfortunate not to have been handed an England recall by Lee Carsley, especially given that Monday brought eight dropouts and five new call-ups in their place.
Alex Iwobi has had to play wide, Andreas Pereira further back, and Harry Wilson often from the bench to make space for Smith Rowe. It has paid off.
“He is going to score more throughout the season and be in better shape every single game,” said Silva said after the win over Palace. “He is a lovely kid, a lovely boy. He wants to learn, he wants to improve. He is already a really good player; he is going to become a man and a top player.”
Smith Rowe can consider himself unfortunate not to have been handed an England recall by Lee Carsley
After Smith Rowe established himself under Mikel Arteta in the second half of the 2020/21 season, his breakthrough campaign was in 2021/22 when he scored 10 Premier League goals in 33 games and became one of the Arsenal manager’s most prolific and trusted attackers.
But groin surgery midway through the following campaign and a hamstring injury later on that season caused him to drop down the pecking order. By the time he was fully fit, Arteta’s squad had evolved and after 12 league appearances in 2022/23 he made just three starts in the top-flight last term.
Arsenal had been unflinching in asserting last summer that Smith Rowe wasn’t for sale, despite interest, but this summer they agreed with his representatives that the 24-year-old needed more regular game time for his development not to stall. And with two years left on his deal, it made business sense, too.
Arsenal pocketed £27million from Fulham, spread across four years, and could land another £7m in performance-related add-ons.
“We had a small chance to fight to have him here,” Fulham boss Silva said this week. “I told our board that we had to go with everything that we can, because we needed a player like him, more creative, a player that arrives in the box.”
