The Bundesliga Rookie of the Month has been one of the shining lights in Germany this season, prompting calls for his loan spell to be cut short <\/p>\n
Six Bundesliga goals in just seven appearances: it\u2019s the kind of form that you\u2019d expect to see from a seasoned professional or top striker playing for Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.<\/p>\n
Instead, it’s the 18-year-old who couldn\u2019t get a game at Arsenal who\u00a0is tearing up one of Europe’s most competitive leagues with Hoffenheim.<\/p>\n
Yes, Reiss Nelson is the other<\/em> revelation of the Bundesliga season so far!<\/p>\n Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n Jadon Sancho may be the name on every England fan’s\u00a0lips right now, after his impressive international\u00a0debut on Thursday night, but his compatriot and good friend Nelson is matching the Borussia Dortmund winger’s sensational start to life in Germany.<\/p>\n Indeed, Nelson\u2019s form has seen him voted ‘Rookie of the Month’ and prompted calls from Arsenal supporters to cut short his season-long loan spell at Hoffenheim and bring him back to the Emirates, particularly now that Danny Welbeck is set to miss the rest of the season with a broken ankle.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment, we don\u2019t speak about that,\u201d Gunners head coach Unai Emery has said. “But\u00a0we are very happy with Reiss at the moment.\u00a0We follow him in every match. We are thinking how he can help us in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Still, those calls to see Nelson playing for Arsenal again before the end of the season are understandable when you look at the impact he\u2019s making for Hoffenheim. His total game contribution still has major room for improvement but there can be no argument that his goals and creativity\u00a0are hugely important to\u00a0Julian Nagelsmann’s side.<\/p>\n The Gunners are pleased with Nelson\u2019s progress and there is genuine believe that he can go on to become a first-team regular\u00a0next season. Head of football\u00a0Raul Sanllehi persuaded Nelson to sign a contract extension before he left on loan this summer and it\u2019s a decision which is proving to be an absolute masterstroke.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, those wanting to bring him back early should consider why he has been sent on loan in the first place: to play regular top-flight level, develop and mature as a player and show that he can adapt by going out of his comfort zone. So far so good\u00a0on all of those fronts, so why risk stunting his growth now?<\/p>\n Tellingly, Nelson has also played down suggestions that he could return to north London in January by hinting that he wants to stay at Hoffenheim so that he can continue to grow, thus putting himself in a better position to challenge for a starting berth at Arsenal in 2019-20.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cArsenal are my boyhood club,” Nelson told the BBC<\/em>.\u00a0“I’ve been with them since I was eight, so that’s 10 years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “I just want to go back there stronger because, at the time I was at Arsenal, I was 16, 17 and I didn’t feel confident.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “I didn’t think I was a man, but now I’m feeling stronger and I think a couple more months or even a year in Hoffenheim will make me stronger and give me the belief and confidence to go back to Arsenal and do very well there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “I want to be an Arsenal legend.”<\/p>\n Despite all of the hype surrounding his fine form at Hoffenheim, Nelson says he “needs to keep his feet on the ground and keep positive”, hinting at the kind of maturity required to excel at the highest level.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Nelson\u2019s recent brace against Nurnberg showed that he is unfazed by the big occasion and possesses the confidence to become a world-class player.<\/p>\n Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger once said that Nelson\u00a0had skills that not many other players have and tipped him as a future star of the Premier League.<\/p>\n He’s already becoming one in the Bundesliga. If he continues on his current path, it’ll only be a matter of time before he becomes one of the Premier League’s leading lights too.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Bundesliga Rookie of the Month has been one of the shining lights in Germany this season, prompting calls for his loan spell to be cut short Six Bundesliga goals in just seven appearances: it\u2019s the kind of form that you\u2019d expect to see from a seasoned professional or top striker playing for Bayern Munich…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n