Eberechi Eze has named the ‘special player’ who has ‘gone beyond his expectations’ since he joined Arsenal last summer.
Eze completed a dream £60m move to the Emirates Stadium back in August after Arsenal hijacked Tottenham’s deal for the Crystal Palace forward.
Spurs had agreed terms with both Eze and Palace but missed out on a key transfer target as the England star chose to join Arsenal – the club he supported growing up.
While Eze’s numbers for Arsenal have not been groundbreaking – two goals and two assists in 15 appearances – the 27-year-old has helped the Gunners enjoy a sensational start to the season.
Arsenal have a four-point cushion at the top of the Premier League ahead of Sunday’s north London derby against Tottenham and are joint-top of the Champions League with a perfect record in Europe.
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Eze insists it is a ‘pleasure’ to be part of Arsenal’s title-challenging squad and says is was immediately clear that every player at the club is keen to continue improving.
The £60m summer signing also said that while most players are ‘what you expect them to be’, he has been surprised by the level of Arsenal defender Jurrien Timber.
Arsenal spent a little under £40m to sign Timber from Ajax in 2023 but he only played three games during his first season in north London due to a serious injury.
Timber has been a key member of Mikel Arteta’s squad since the start of last season, however, and started all 11 of Arsenal’s Premier League games so far this year, earning praise from a number of pundits.
‘Everyone is sort of what you expect them to be,’ Eze said on GOAL‘s Beast Mode On podcast. ‘The expectation of all the players is high.
‘I’ll say one player who has gone even beyond the high expectation I already had – because I’d heard good things about him – was Jurrien Timber. He’s a special player and a special guy.
‘I think for me, in an environment of people and you have a culture that is geared towards improving, these guys all want to improve.
‘So for me it’s a pleasure to be part of it and to see guys like him who perform the way they perform, who carry themselves the way they carry themselves. It’s inspiring, for sure.’
Before the November international break, Manchester United legend and ex-England defender Gary Neville hailed Timber as the ‘second-best’ player in his position.
‘What I was thinking last night watching Arsenal, I was watching Lewis-Skelly, obviously Timber played, you’ve got Ben White and Calafiori, I thought all Arsenal’s full-backs are better than Liverpool’s, all four of them, that’s a big problem for Liverpool,’ Neville said on The Overlap.
‘Jurrien Timber is the best full-back in the league at the moment. I think Timber is almost, in my mind, I would class as being… do you know the guy that plays for Real Madrid? Carvajal. For me, he’s the best.
‘And I think Timber’s the nearest to him at the moment, I see, in terms of being able to do that bit and do that bit, do the forward bit well enough, but definitely cuts everything off down his side.’
Eze will hope to help Arsenal maintain their four-point lead at the top of the Premier League on Sunday against his former suitors Spurs.
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