Chido Obi set for Arsenal reunion as Manchester United striker looks to prove point

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·9 March 2025

Chido Obi set for Arsenal reunion as Manchester United striker looks to prove point

Forward opted to swap Gunners for Red Devils last summer

Chido Obi has been making waves in youth football

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Listening to Mikel Arteta, it is easy to understand how highly Arsenal rated Chido Obi.

Even after Obi left Arsenal to join Manchester United last year, and ahead of a possible reunion at Old Trafford on Sunday, there was no softening in Arteta’s praise for the teenage striker.

“A massive goal threat, an attitude and love to be inside the box and a capacity to score in many different ways,” Arteta said on Friday. “That was him.”

Arteta’s description of Obi is, in many ways, the player Arsenal could do with right now. Injuries have decimated their forward line to the extent they will finish the season without a recognised striker.

Mikel Merino has started the last three games as an emergency No9 and the midfielder will likely play there again this weekend.

Had Obi stayed at Arsenal, it is not hard to see how that could have been him or, at the very least, he would have been an option off the bench right now. Instead, the teenager will be in United’s squad this weekend.

There are two sides to every story and that certainly applies to the 17-year-old’s departure from the Gunners.

Some will tell you it was because Manchester United offered more lucrative financial terms. Others will say it was because Obi did not see a path to the first team at Arsenal.

The Gunners presented him with a plan last summer that would see him transitioning from the Under-18 squad to the Under-21s this season, with chances to train with the first team included in that.

Obi is believed to have seen his progression as being quicker than that - not least because he scored 32 goals in just 18 Under-18 games for Arsenal last season - and he will argue his move to Manchester United justifies that view.

The striker has already made his first-team debut for Manchester United and is now pushing for more minutes.

“To persuade a player to stay, a player has to be willing to be with us and commit to us and I don’t know specifically, both parties will feel very different about it,” said Arteta. “The reality is that he has decided to move and we have moved on from that.

“Obviously, when a player decides that the best pathway for him is to leave, there’s not much you can do.

“Very unfortunate because we want to keep our players from the academy and to be very successful with the first team.”

Arteta and Arsenal would certainly reject the notion there is not a pathway for young players at the club.

Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly’s rise this season is testament to that, with both teenagers touted as contenders for the England senior squad that will be announced next week.

Both have played far more this season than expected, with injuries presenting them with an opportunity to shine.

There was a time before Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri, however, that some people argued Arteta was too reluctant to blood young players.

That came to a head during a Champions League dead rubber at PSV Eindhoven last season, when Arteta chose not to play several youngsters, including Lino Sousa and Reuell Walters - who have both since left the club.

“I guarantee you that if there is a player there that can help and impact the first team, he’s going to be with us,” said Arteta.

It would be intriguing to see where Obi would be if he had chosen to stay at Arsenal last summer and sign scholarship terms.

Chido Obi was a highly-rated player in the Arsenal youth academy

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The striker was tipped to be a star by the club and he shot to fame after scoring 10 goals against Liverpool’s Under-16 side.

Tall, quick and strong, Obi is what many youth coaches look for in a young striker and those back in Denmark speak glowingly over him.

“He played with us until he was 13, when the family moved to London,” Sune Smith-Nielsen, development director at FC Copenhagen, told Danish magazine Tipsbladet.

“He was a huge talent. He has been a huge talent since he was six years old. He played two years older at times, and he has always had huge potential offensively. He has a wild technique and fantastic physical abilities.”

A player in Obi’s mould would have fitted Arsenal’s attack and especially now, when they are crying out for a striker, this could have been his moment to shine.

Instead, it may turn out that the teenager returns to haunt his old club on Sunday and end their fading title hopes.