A loan spell for a youngster is usually just a good chance to get some senior football under their belt, while they’ll hope that they do enough to be considered for a bigger role when they return.
Every now and then we do see a young player do so well that their parent club just won’t have a choice over giving them a shot because of how they’ve performed, and that has to be the case with Arsenal and Joe Willock next year.
He’s been outstanding for Newcastle United during his loan spell and he’s added a regular goalscoring touch to his game, but this really puts into context how special he’s been over the past few games:
7 – Joe Willock is only the second Newcastle player to score in seven consecutive Premier League appearances, after Alan Shearer in 1996. Incredible.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) May 23, 2021
At this point you can actually start to argue that Arsenal don’t just need to find a way to give him more chances – they should actually be looking at what he’s done and finding a way to build around that in some way next season when he plays.
At the very worst this has raised his transfer value, but Arsenal need to improve the midfield and there’s no way that Mikel Arteta can just ignore him when he returns.