Arsenal closes a £ 52 million deal for Chelsea Winger Noni Madueke, whose career at Stamford Bridge was not all just sail after reaching problems with manager Enzo Maresca last season
Chelsea star Noni Madueke is about to become a member of London Rivals Arsenal in a £ 52 million deal – and the problems that have plagued his time in Stamford are now uncovered.
Madueke will be the newest player to make the switch from Stamford Bridge to the Emirates to strengthen the options of Mikel Arteta on both wings.
He will sign a five -year -old deal with Arsenal after agreing with personal conditions on a switch over the capital in a movement that is divided over the fan base.
It is still to be seen whether Madueke will get the first team football with the Gunners than he is currently doing with the blues. The 23-year-old still succeeded 27 starts in the Premier League from a possible 38, but seems to have fallen out of favor with the boss Enzo Maresca.
Madueke came to Chelsea of PSV in January 2023 for an estimated compensation of £ 28.5 million, but according to a report from the Daily Mail, figures from the club do not believe he kicked at that time.
There are also concerns about the discipline and attitude of Madueke, who were dropped twice by Maresca due to claims of poor training performances.
The Italian said his decision to drop him from the MatchDay team that traveled to Fulham on Boxing Day last season was a “technical decision”, after he had left him out of the group who played in Aston Villa.
And even after scoring a 3-1 win over Wolves in January, Maresca said that he wanted an “immediate” improvement from the player, claiming that he “stopped playing” after scoring the third goal of the game.
“He can improve in the last third part, but probably after he scored the goal he stopped playing,” he said. “This must be one thing that we have to improve. Never happy if you score one or two – you always have to go for more.”
This summer, Madueke – who has 20 goals and nine assists of 92 games – is part of Chelsea's Club World Cup Squad, but he only started two of their six games in total.
He started the 2-0 win over Los Angeles last month, but only played eight minutes of Chelsea's 3-1 defeat against Flamengo. He then started against Es Tunis, but had to settle for replacement roles against Palmeiras and Fluminense. The speculation could have influenced Maresca's decision -making and he admitted that there had been “noise” around the future of Madueke before the semi -final collision against Fluminense.
“Personally, I think the same sound where Palmeiras came, you see that we gave him half an hour and he was very good, so I have no doubt that if we need Noni, he will help us,” he said.
“At the same time I can understand that as a person when there is a lot of noise around you, it is not easy to deal with it, but hopefully he can deal with it.”