Jamie Gittens is not ready to play regularly for a club like Arsenal despite his evident potential.
The Borussia Dortmund winger has been frequently linked with a move to the Premier League over the past 12 months. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are said to be keen on him, and the Gunners appear to be leading the race if German media is to be believed.
Dortmund have managed to stabilise after a horrendous period that culminated in Nuri Sahin being sacked, but the resurgence under Niko Kovac has largely been accomplished without Gittens.
The England youth international has been a peripheral figure under the new coach and is ready to jump ship this summer. It will reportedly take a fee in the region of €50 million to €60m to sign the attacker in the upcoming window.
Gittens not ready for Arsenal
On Monday, an Arsenal supporter who shall remain nameless posted a highlights compilation of Gittens on X with the caption: “Jamie Bynoe-Gittens is a better, more polished winger than Nico Williams, and he’s the exact type of winger that Arsenal needs.”
Regardless of whether the tweet was posted in earnest or just ‘ragebait,’ it might be instructive to briefly outline exactly what kind of player he is for those only familiar with Gittens from social media clips.
Gittens is primarily a left-winger who, due to injury problems, is only really playing his second proper season of senior football for Dortmund. Once billed as the heir to Jadon Sancho, the 20-year-old’s development could not have turned out more different from that of his predecessor.
To put it bluntly, Gittens is seemingly just as raw now as he was when he arrived in Dortmund’s academy in 2020. The Englishman boasts exceptional pace and great one-on-one ability.
The problem is that the rest of his game is still severely lacking. Although he has scored a respectable 12 goals this season, Gittens is not a reliable finisher, nor is he a reliable provider.
He has moments of brilliance, but he struggles massively to consistently perform at a high level. Usually, he has a few promising actions during a game, but then he is relatively quiet for the remaining, say, 85 minutes.
To say that Gittens is in any way ‘polished’ could not be more wrong. He is, on the contrary, still incredibly raw for a player who has been in and around Dortmund’s first team for almost three years now.
Gittens generally does really well to get himself into dangerous positions, but when the moment of truth actually comes to deliver a good ball or to finish clinically, he usually just gets his head down, swings at the ball, and hopes for the best.
The foundation Gittens has is brilliant. His combination of athleticism and technical ability could yet see him become an irresistible player. Currently, however, he is nowhere near good enough to consistently play for a team like Arsenal.
Gittens is keen to return to the Premier League, although Bayern are also interested. The best-case scenario is that he either signs for a mid-table side – unlikely due to his price tag – where he can play regularly, or that he joins a big club like Arsenal and initially goes out on loan to get consistent minutes at a good level.
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