Nigerian international and Arsenal forward Alex Iwobi has signed a new long-term contract with the north London side.
The 22-year-old, who joined the Gunners as a nine-year-old, came through the Hale End Academy. Since breaking into the first team in 2015, he has made 98 appearances, scoring nine goals.
Arsenal boss Unai Emery was pleased with Iwobi extending his stay with the Gunners, “I’m very pleased Alex has signed a new contract with us. He is a great example of a player who can succeed from the Academy through hard work and I look forward to working with him and our other talented young players in the squad,” said Unai.
For the national senior team, he has netted six goals in 20 appearances.
Iwobi joined Arsenal while still at primary school,and was first involved in a first-team match as an unused substitute in a League Cup match against West Bromwich Albion on 25 September 2013. He signed a new long-term contract with Arsenal in October 2015.
On 27 October 2015, Iwobi made his first-team debut for the club, starting in a 3–0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday in the Round of 16 of the League Cup. He made his Premier League debut four days later in a 3–0 win against Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium, as a stoppage-time substitute for Mesut Özil. Iwobi made his Champions League debut as an 85th-minute substitute in a 5–1 defeat against Bayern Munich.
Iwobi started in the first team for the 2015–16 FA Cup 3rd and 4th round home wins against Sunderland and Burnley respectively.
After getting a first Champions League start in a 3–1 away defeat to Barcelona,Iwobi went on to score two goals in his first two Premier League starts in wins against Everton, and Watford, respectively.
In the following season Iwobi changed his squad number from 45 to 17. This was due to Chilean forward Alexis Sánchez taking up the newly vacated number 7 from the departing Tomáš Rosický.
Iwobi went on to feature throughout Arsenal’s victorious FA Cup campaign of 2016–17. As so he earned a winners medal as being part of the squad that beat Chelsea by 2 goals to 1 in the final of such. He achieved further success with Arsenal in the 2017 Community Shield, in which Arsenal beat Chelsea on penalties.
In January 2018 a video allegedly showing Iwobi at a late-night party the day before a match was released. Iwobi started as a youth international for England, with whom he won the Victory Shield of 2011. Iwobi went on though to play for Nigeria. He made his senior debut for the Super Eagles on 8 October 2015, replacing Ahmed Musa in the 57th minute of a 2–0 friendly defeat to DR Congo in Visé, Belgium.
He was selected by Nigeria for their 35-man provisional squad for the 2016 Summer Olympics.He was not a part of the 18-man final squad.
In August 2017 Iwobi pulled out of Nigeria’s squad for that month’s World Cup qualifiers due to injury.On 7 October 2017, Iwobi scored for Nigeria in a 1–0 win over Zambia to secure the Super Eagles a spot in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
He was named in Nigeria’s 23-man squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. He said that the team needed to learn from its performance after going out in the group stages.