A Quick Rise to the Top for Folarin Balogun

Arsenal’s 2022/23 Premier League campaign is going so well that they can handle without a striker rivaling Kylian Mbappe in the French league goal-scoring charts.

From struggling to even make the Arsenal squad in the 2021/22 season to eclipsing elite players, such as Lionel Messi and Neymar, on the goal-scoring chart, here’s all about the quick rise to the top for Folarin Balogun.

A Season Full of Struggles – The 2021/22 Campaign

The 21-year-old striker witnessed a tough start to life at Arsenal in the 2021/22 season when the Gunners lost back-to-back Premier League matches to Brentford and Chelsea.

Upon seeing Balogun struggling to get acquainted with the high-intensity football in England’s top-tier league, Mikel Arteta sent him to Premier League 2 to participate in the Arsenal U21 and U23 games. Call it a coincidence or Arteta’s managerial prowess, Folarin managed to tap into his electrifying potential and netted 13 goals along with three assists in only 11 appearances across the competition.

However, Arteta was convinced Balogun had much more to offer and could benefit from a spell in England’s First Division football or EFL Championship. As a result, he loaned the Hale End academy graduate to Middlesbrough FC during the winter transfer window for the remainder of the season.

While the world looked at this move as the final step for Balogun before he found his way back to Arsenal’s first team again, a relatively dry spell at Middlesbrough, consisting of only three goals and three assists in 18 appearances, failed to make up Arteta’s mind.

A Career-Changing Summer

Before the beginning of the 2021/22 season, the availability and, more importantly, the utter reliance of Arteta on Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as the sole attacking options reduced Balogun’s chances of featuring in the first team.

When Lacazette and Aubameyang were ruled out for the first few matches of the season, a talented yet unknown striker broke into the first team. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, an opening day loss to Brentford and a defeat to Chelsea in the next match didn’t work in the young Gunner’s favor, who remained goalless after 70 minutes of football.

Following the termination of Aubameyang’s contract via mutual consent and the permanent transfer of Lacazette to his previous club Lyon, Arteta had a chance to rely on Balogun. Still, he probably knew it was too big a responsibility for a youngster.

Hence, he decided to bring Gabriel Jesus, an experienced No. 9 with the expertise of working under Pep Guardiola, to the Emirates in the summer before the 2022/23 season. With Jesus, Nketiah, and ESR bolstering Arsenal’s attacking reinforcements, Arteta felt secure enough to loan Balogun to Reims in Ligue 1 in the same transfer window.

At the Very Top in France

Currently, Folarin Balogun sits fourth in the list of top scorers in Ligue 1 with 15 goals in 25 appearances, netting a goal in every 130 minutes he spends on the pitch. Furthermore, he ranks above footballing maestros like Neymar and Lionel Messi in the same list, who have both scored 13 goals each.

On top of that, during Reims’ match against the league leaders, PSG, in the French capital, the 21-year-old goal-scoring machine scored a last-minute equalizer to secure a point for his team.

Another example of Balogun’s rise to the top is his performance against Lorient when a hat-trick he scored allowed Reims to return from a two-goal deficit and win the match.

Apart from his excitingly deadly potential as a center-forward, Mikel Arteta’s talent recognition and ability to develop players has helped Folarin Balogun to rise to the top as one of Europe’s youngest goal-scoring talents.

His undoubted attacking prowess has brought him to the attention of the United States, along with their fans, urging him to play for the USMNT. As Balogun also qualifies to play for Nigeria and England, the next few months will be quite interesting to see which country he decides to play for.