It has been quite the year for Arsenal youngster Marquinhos.
The Brazilian youngster was actually the first of five signings made by the north London outfit during last summer’s transfer window – along with compatriot Gabriel Jesus – with his £3m move from Sao Paulo announced on June 13, 2022 before being officially completed on July 1, 2022.
From there Marquinhos was immediately involved in the first-team picture, despite comments from Edu Gaspar that suggested he was one for the future: “We’re delighted to have completed the transfer with Sao Paulo, as Marquinhos was a player we had been watching for a while,” the Gunners technical director told the club’s official website. “At 19, he is still very young, so he is a player for the future. We look forward to Marquinhos now joining us for pre-season, making his new home, and continuing to grow and develop with us.”
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Interestingly, there were a lot of similarities between Marquinhos and another fellow Brazilian, Gabriel Martinelli. Upon joining from Ituano in the summer of 2019, the latter wasn’t expected to feature in the first-team but after impressing in training sessions he was able to change the mind of then-head coach Unai Emery and the rest is history.
There’s still a long way to go for the former to emulate his compatriot but he clearly did something to catch the eye of Mikel Arteta as he was included in the squad that travelled out to Germany and the United States tour as he took part in pre-season games against the likes of Nurnberg, Chelsea and Everton.
Things then took a positive step as after turning in some impressive displays for the under-21s at the beginning of the season, Marquinhos marked his senior competitive debut with a goal and assist in the Europa League group phase clash against FC Zurich away from home.
However, following ‘a slightly disappointing night’ against FK Bodo/Glimt a few weeks later on what was his first game at the Emirates Stadium, the winger saw less and less game time either side of the World Cup break and eventually joined Norwich City on loan for the remainder of the season on transfer deadline day in January.
Whilst it took 25 days for Marquinhos to make his debut for the Championship club, it was certainly worth the wait as he weighed in with a goal and an assist – repeating the trick from his Arsenal bow in the Europa League – but that turned out to be the only real highlight of the loan spell.
Still, the 20-year-old was able to earn a call-up to the Brazil squad for the U20’s World Cup where he’s impressed in two appearances thus far. A substitute in the opener against Italy last Sunday, he registered an assist in a narrow 3-2 defeat before earning a 7.6 SofaScore rating in the 6-0 thrashing of the Dominican Republic on Wednesday.
What was interesting about Marquinhos’ performance is the position he took up. Now for Arsenal and during the brief period with Norwich, he has been used as a right-winger which allows him to cut inside onto his favoured left foot to create a decent opportunity to score or to pick out a teammate.
Yet for the national team, he was deployed as a left-winger and the heat map (which can be seen above) indicates he was given strict instructions to keep the width as he rarely drifted over to the opposite flank during his 77 minutes on the pitch where he missed a big chance by slicing the ball wide at the back post.
This positional change could be rather significant heading into the summer transfer window as a decision will need to be made with regard to what’s best for Marquinhos development next season.
With Martinelli and Leandro Trossard the more senior options on the left-wing, if Reiss Nelson pens a new contract or Arsenal sign a forward to compete with Bukayo Saka on the right-wing then Marquinhos is likely to find regular game time even harder to come by in 23/24 and therefore the club might be open to another loan deal.
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