Arsenal reannounced themselves as genuine Premier League title contenders last night with a comprehensive 3-1 home win over rivals Liverpool.
The entire team were excellent from the first whistle – bar a comedy of errors in the 45th minute – but two players who have perhaps not received the praise they deserved are Oleksandr Zinchenko and Ben White.
Both full-backs – and White in particular – were electric in the first half, but a minor injury to Zinchenko and a lack of depth at right-back in the absence of Takehiro Tomyasu and Jurrien Timber is a genuine concern.
With this in mind, it makes sense to see links to Jeremie Frimpong in recent months, but Mikel Arteta might be able to save the club a lot of money by promoting one of Hale End's most exciting youngsters, someone who has been compared to Reece James.
Arsenal's pursuit of Jeremie Frimpong
Like most of their rivals in England, the Gunners endured a rather barren transfer window last month in which they made no new signings and either sent players out on loan or authorised permanent exits.
However, that didn't stop numerous high-profile players being touted for a move to N5, and while many of said rumours would have been baseless, the links to Bayer Leverkusen's Frimpong looked genuine.
According to German publication BILD (via TEAMtalk), the north Londoners plan to sign the young full-back in the summer by activating his £34m release clause, which only comes into effect in the summer.
Now, while that might not seem like an awful lot of money in the modern game, last month's lack of spending suggests that it might once again be viewed as a significant investment, and if that's true, it might be wiser to promote from within and save those funds for a more pressing matter; a clinical forward.
And it should be easier for Arteta to do that with Brooke Norton-Cuffy waiting in the wings at Arsenal.
Brooke Norton-Cuffy's promising career so far
Described as a 'marauding right back with bags of pace and superb technical ability' on the Arsenal website, Norton-Cuffy is easily one of the most exciting young prospects to come out of Hale End in quite some time, and unlike a lot of young academy players, he has quite a bit of senior football under his belt already.
Described as Arsenal's "own Reece James" by data analyst Ben Mattinson, Norton-Cuffy – like James – has spent a significant amount of time away from north London already, with loan spells to League One side Lincoln City and Championship sides Rotherham United, Coventry City and Millwall.
He has been able to make an impact at each club he has played for, and has already made 27 appearances for Millwall in the second tier this season, scoring two goals, providing two assists, and being described as "an exciting player with a lot of potential" by manager Joe Edwards.
In James' 45 Championship appearances, he managed to score just three goals and provide three assists, so while the "insane" Arsenal youngster, as described by Mattinson, still has a long way to reach the level the Chelsea man has, he's almost certainly going to beat his tally, considering he has another 18 games in which to do so.
Moreover, while his attacking output still lags behind Frimpong's, his defensive abilities are already more impressive.
Norton-Cuffy
Frimpong
0.18
0.53
0.09
0.30
1.26
0.59
0.99
0.30
1.57
0.53
4.93
3.91
1.52
0.53
For example, his non-penalty expected goal and assists number is just 0.18 to Frimpong's 0.53, but he wins significantly more tackles, makes more interceptions, more clearances, more ball recoveries and wins more aerial duels per 90.
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Ultimately, with money potentially at more of a premium in the future and a striker being an area of need, it would make far more sense to promote Norton-Cuffy next season over signing Frimpong, and if Mattinson is correct, that he could end up emulating James, then Arteta will have an imposing array of full-backs to chose from going forward.