New York News
Good morning.
Let’s start this morning’s blog in France where Folarin Balogun scored a hat-trick last night for Reims, propelling him to the top of the Ligue 1 scoring charts. You can see the goals over on Arseblog News.
It’s been a good week for him. On Sunday he scored a late equaliser at PSG, the kind of goal everyone can get behind simply because of who it was against, and last night with his side 2-0 down he sparked a fantastic comeback. Spare a thought for former Arsenal keeper Vito Mannone who was in goal for Lorient, but it’s all about the 21 year old striker who dispatched a penalty, a right footed volley and a super-sweet left footed volley to bag his first hat-trick in senior football.
It put him on 14 goals for the season, one more than Kylian Mbappe, and two ahead of a clutch of players that includes Neymar (who must be due to take his time off for his annual party seasoon soon), and former Gunner Alexandre Lacazette. When you take into account that Reims have scored 26 goals in the league this season, Balogun’s contribution looks even more impressive.
This loan is working out big time, for the player and for Arsenal. He was at a point where he had to play regularly to develop; the club needed to see what he could do in men’s football, playing against grown-ups every week, and this is the answer. I think what makes this even more promising is that he’s at a club that has been ensconced in mid-table for a couple of years now. They finished 6th in 2019-20, but since then they’ve ended up 14th and 12th in the league.
If Balogun had gone on loan to a bigger club, perhaps his playing time might have been impacted, but the challenge then is to have end product at a club where you play more often bu