Everyone associated with Arsenal football club is quite familiar with Lukas Podolski’s abilities.
He’s clinical in front of goal, launches surface to goal torpedoes from his left foot, predominantly a left winger, has good off the ball movement and is a lovable character off the field of play. And like every other player, Podolski has his own flaws – he’s not adept playing as a center forward, he can’t hold up play, he becomes anonymous in games more times than none and most importantly, he doesn’t really fit into Arsenal’s style of play. Arsene Wenger prides himself in a technical style of play that involves a lot of fluid movement of the attackers and unfortunately, Podolski isn’t in this class but with 29 goals in 75 appearances for the team, he has been played his own part in the Gunners successes.
This season, he has scored three goals (all in the Champions League) for the Gunners but he became disgruntled with lack of playing time and he was quite vocal about it. At the start of the winter transfer window, Roberto Mancini of Internazionale signalled his intentions of snapping the German on loan and the star grabbed the opportunity with both hands. However, the player was unhappy that Arsene Wenger didn’t give him a ‘goodbye note’ when he departed for Milan,
“He [Arsene Wenger] said nothing to me. He did not call or say goodbye. I don’t need flowers or a kiss from him but it’s about respect, about saying goodbye. For me, respect is important. I did everything for the club I could possibly have. I don’t believe I did anything wrong”
I watched Inter’s match against Juventus with the hope of seeing Podolski make his debut. The German came on in the 54th minute for Zdravko Kuzmanovic and he hit the ground running with a neat assist for Mauro Icardi. Inter ended up losing that game but I felt Podolski had a nice start to a new chapter in his career. However, Podolski went on to make five more appearances for the club and he hasn’t registered his first goal yet. A few days later, Inter signed Xherdan Shaqiri from FC Bayern and the Swiss winger went on to score against Sampdoria in his Coppa Italia debut. Inter recently published their Europa League list and the only addition to the list was Lukas Podolski Xherdan Shaqiri as he was preffered to the German.
According to Tuttosport, Roberto Mancini has been ‘underwhelmed’ with the impact made by Podolski and he’s odds on to return to the Emirates this summer. This bit of info wouldn’t particularly go down with the Podolski camp because I’m pretty sure that he was hopeful to do enough for Inter to retain his services. At Arsenal, Podolski’s chances are very bleak so I’d expect him to force a move away from North London if he returns after his spell with Inter.
I still believe that there’s a lot of time for the German to change Mancini’s mind but he has to continuously feature in games and at least, try to make a significant impact. Inn honesty, I’ve never really been a fan of the Serie A but I try to watch the games there from time to time, and I’d be monitoring Podolski’s progress in the coming weeks.
I think it’s time to move on to other things. I have a lot on my table.
Sayonara.
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