Everything you need to know about Eddie Nketiah

Club

30 Aug 2024

Crystal Palace fans, meet your new No.9: Eddie Nketiah is Crystal Palace’s fourth summer signing.

A proven Premier League talent with energy, dynamism and athleticism to burn, Nketiah is an exciting addition to Palace’s forward line – but how much do you know about the England international?

Find out more about Eddie Nketiah below...

Made of the Wright stuff

He might have made his breakthrough north of the river, but Eddie Nketiah is one of South London’s own.

Playing on the same pitches as his idol and mentor, Palace and Arsenal legend Ian Wright, Nketiah was born and raised in South-East London, growing up in Deptford.

It was there his journey to stardom began when he started playing Sunday football at the age of eight for local club Hillyfielders FC, based in nearby Brockley.

Being from a religious family, he would often arrive at matches five minutes before the midday kick-off time, but he repaid his coach with goals aplenty!

Indeed, it was after one particularly prolific tournament for Hillyfielders that he attracted the attentions of Charlton Athletic and Chelsea, signing for the latter as a nine-year-old.

Nketiah scores for Arsenal's U23s in 2016

The goals keep coming

Nketiah’s first academy experience may have come with the Blues, but after leaving Chelsea aged 14, it was in North London where Nketiah would well and truly make the grade.

After joining the Gunners, Nketiah’s attacking returns sky-rocketed: he scored 39 goals in 39 appearances for Arsenal's Under-18s, as well as 28 in 40 for the Under-23s side.

Within two years, Nketiah was featuring regularly for England youth sides – alongside fellow South Londoner, and good friend, Ebere Eze – and he had earned a call-up by Arsène Wenger for the first-team’s 2017 pre-season trip to Australia and China.

Gunner make an impact

Where his senior debut – an 89th-minute substitute appearance in a comprehensive Europa League win for Arsenal – was more straightforward, Nketiah’s second senior match, in October 2017, was quite simply the stuff of dreams.

At 18-years-old, Nketiah entered the field of play with five minutes remaining at the Emirates Stadium, and Arsenal 1-0 down to Championship side Norwich City in a League Cup tie.

Within 15 seconds, he jogged into the box to attack a corner, and reacted sharply to a flick-on to stab home and send the tie into extra-time.

He'd even go one better: in the 96th-minute, the teenager scored the winner, heading home from a corner.

Nketiah would be eased in by Wenger over the months that followed, making 19 appearances in total over the next two seasons, but he continued to make a huge impact at youth international level.

He earned his first call-up to the England Under-21 side for the 2018 Toulon Tournament, where he scored twice in the semi-final against Scotland and assisted the winner in the final versus Mexico.

Nketiah continued to feature regularly for Arsenal over the seasons that followed, also spending the first half of 2019/20 on loan at Leeds United, who went on to lift the Championship title.

Just two weeks later, Nketiah lifted silverware himself, appearing as a late substitute in Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Chelsea in the FA Cup final at Wembley.

And in October of that year, Nketiah claimed personal glory, scoring his 13th goal for England’s U21s to equal the record long-held by Alan Shearer.

After captaining the Young Lions at the 2021 Under-21 Euros, Nketiah’s record total stood at 16 goals in 17 caps at that level.

Man of the Moment

Over the years that followed, Nketiah would continue to shape his all-round game, vying with experienced goal-getters Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Gabriel Jesus in North London.

As well as averaging a goal every 184 minutes played for the Gunners, his strikes were often important ones, including a brace against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and a brace – including a 90th-minute winner – against Manchester United.

Nketiah started last season with a bang, starting nine of Arsenal’s first eleven Premier League games and scoring five times, including a first-ever Premier League hat-trick against Sheffield United.

This rich vein of form coincided with his first call-up to the senior England squad in August 2023. Two months later, his England debut arrived as a second-half substitute in the 1-0 win over Australia at Wembley.

England internationals and Selhurst Park go together, it would seem – welcome back to South London, Eddie.

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