Christos Tzolis: Arsenal's New Left-Wing Solution
Amid calls for a marquee signing, Arsenal may already have their left-wing answer running drills at London Colney.
Five years ago, Christos Tzolis slipped quietly into the Premier League. Nineteen years old, a Norwich winger making his debut at the Emirates, he barely left a mark. No shots. No real threat. Arsenal, bottom of the table after three games without a goal, clung to a 1-0 win that probably saved Mikel Arteta’s job.
That afternoon has aged into a sliding-doors moment for the club. For Tzolis, it was just another frustrating chapter. Fourteen Premier League appearances for Norwich, no goals, and then the game moved on without him.
Now he has circled back, this time in red and white, and suddenly looks like a key figure in what Arsenal hope will be a title defence built on sharper, colder finishing.
From Norwich footnote to pre-season focal point
The transformation has been stark. At Club Brugge, Tzolis became a machine. Twenty-two goals and 29 assists in all competitions last season, numbers that jump off the page even with the Opta caveat that Belgium sits as the seventh-strongest league in the world.
The raw output is impossible to ignore. So is the consistency behind it.
Tzolis has either scored or assisted in each of his last 15 competitive club games, stacking up 25 goal involvements in that run. This is not the profile of a streaky winger who catches fire for a fortnight and then vanishes. This is sustained production, the very thing Arsenal’s attack has been missing.
Arteta and Arsenal’s recruitment team were drawn to more than just the numbers. They liked his ability to operate across the front line, his two-footedness, the echoes of Leandro Trossard in the way he can pop up in different zones and still look comfortable. Inside the club, there was also a clear belief that Tzolis would raise the technical ceiling of the forward line.
His character landed well too. That matters under Arteta. The manager wants players who can absorb detail, adapt quickly, and handle the pressure that now comes with playing for a side expected to challenge for the title every season.
Tzolis, for his part, already knows exactly how hard it is to play against this Arsenal.
“I can say it was the most difficult team to attack against that I’ve played so far,” he said earlier this summer, reflecting on facing them with Club Brugge last season. “We played against other big teams, but against Arsenal, we had the most difficulties to make clear chances.”
Now he only has to crack that defensive wall in training.
An answer to Arsenal’s quiet problem
For all the tactical debate around Arsenal’s build-up patterns and structure, last season’s underlying issue in attack was simple: too many forwards did not deliver enough.
Gabriel Martinelli managed just one Premier League goal. Only Viktor Gyokeres reached more than seven league strikes. Martin Odegaard topped the assist charts with six. Arsenal won the title, but they did it without a conveyor belt of goals from their wide forwards.
This is where Tzolis’ profile bites. His “superpower”, as those at the club see it, is end product. He gets into the last 20 or 30 metres and things happen.
Arteta spelled it out after the Community Shield.
“He's fitting, he's a really intelligent boy and he has a massive quality which is when he's in the last 20-30 metres,” the manager said. “He's so composed to pick people out around the box or to finish actions. I'm really impressed with him.”
The early evidence in an Arsenal shirt backs that up. Helped by a head start — two weeks of pre-season and a friendly with Club Brugge before joining up with his new team-mates — Tzolis has looked sharp throughout the summer.
He created goals against Borussia Dortmund and Real Betis. He opened his own account with a curling finish into the far corner versus Girona. Then came Wembley, the first real examination.
Shades of Alexis on the left
The Community Shield brought a higher tempo and a familiar stage, and Tzolis did not shrink. Wearing the No17, he played with a swagger that stirred memories.
His clever header teed up Kai Havertz for Arsenal’s second. Later, he drifted in from the left, carried the ball with those tight, quick touches, and picked out Odegaard in the box for another assist. The movement, the angle of the run, the cut inside — there were clear shades of Alexis Sanchez in that passage.
Tzolis knows the comparison is there.
“Actually, I knew that he wore the number 17,” he said after signing. “I watched a lot of football and he was a top player for Arsenal, as a left winger always. He’s one of the players I looked up to when I was younger. And also, I see some similarities with him. But it’s not the reason I took the number 17.
“It’s nice (though). Alexis Sanchez had number 17 - so I hope I will have the same success.”
That is a heavy benchmark, but Arsenal’s actions suggest they believe Tzolis can handle a prominent role, at least in the short term.
Martinelli’s future and a new balance on the flank
The club’s openness to selling Gabriel Martinelli, who was left out of Arteta’s squad entirely for the Community Shield, speaks volumes. It is a clear sign that, for now, Tzolis is trusted as the first-choice left winger.
That flank has been a nagging issue for several seasons. Arsenal’s attacking threat has leaned heavily to the right, built around Bukayo Saka and Odegaard. The left side rarely carried the same control or incision.
This summer hints at a shift. With Riccardo Calafiori stepping up from left-back and Tzolis operating ahead of him, Arsenal might finally have a more natural balance across the pitch.
They still want more in attack. The club would like to add another forward of real stature, and Eberechi Eze, for example, can also drift in from the left if required. If no suitable offer arrives for Martinelli before the window closes, he remains a live option to compete with Tzolis and could benefit from a more progressive passer behind him in midfield, such as his Brazil team-mate Bruno Guimaraes.
The plan when Tzolis was signed was never to build the entire attack around him. He was supposed to be part of a broader reshaping, with a marquee arrival to follow either now or in a future window. That could still happen, and if it does, his minutes may eventually tighten.
Right now, though, the shirt is his to lose.
Durable, decisive, and exactly what Arsenal lacked
One more detail will encourage Arteta as the season looms: availability. During two years in Belgium, Tzolis missed only five matches, three of those through illness. For an Arsenal forward line that has repeatedly been disrupted by injuries, that durability carries weight.
The club need almost all of their attackers to raise their output from last season if they are to defend the title. Saka, Odegaard, Havertz, whoever leads the line — the collective bar has moved.
For Tzolis, the brief is different. Arsenal are not asking him to reinvent himself. They just want him to keep doing what he has been doing for the last 15 games and beyond.
If he does, the clamour for a marquee name on the left might start to sound strangely quiet.
