Noni Madueke has started one Premier League match this season. He has now won Arsenal one on his own.
The substitute came on at half-time at the City Ground on Sunday, replacing an ineffective Eberechi Eze, and with 10 minutes left he produced the only shot on target Arsenal managed in 90 minutes. Collecting from Declan Rice, Madueke cut inside from the left and drove at goal; the ball clipped Jair Cunha, wrong-footed Matz Sels and settled in the net. Nottingham Forest 0-1 Arsenal — 74% possession, 629 passes, one shot on target, three points.
“Another level of anger, another level of conviction in his actions,” was how Mikel Arteta described his winger afterwards. “He’s becoming decisive in matches.” For a player who has spent most of the campaign waiting on the bench, it was the most valuable kind of validation.
A win built on one moment, and one substitution
Arsenal were poor for 45 minutes. The reigning champions controlled the ball without ever threatening Sels, and Forest — organised, aggressive, playing with the urgency of a side in trouble — were arguably the better team. Arteta’s response was to send on Madueke at the interval, and the game’s shape changed: pace on the outside, a willingness to take the ball into contact, shots attempted rather than passes recycled.
That he scored with a deflection was not lost on Oliver Glasner, who called the defeat “a bit of déjà vu” and said what most inside the ground were thinking. “I think everybody feels the result is unfair today,” the Forest manager said. “It was their only shot on target and this one was deflected.” Without Cunha’s intervention, he argued, the ball goes straight to his goalkeeper.
He has a case. But the alternative reading is the one Arteta will take: Arsenal created almost nothing for 80 minutes and still won, because the player he introduced had the conviction to shoot when a safer option existed. The margins, as Arteta put it, stay small “unless you open up the game much earlier”.
The numbers underline how narrow Forest’s situation has become. It was their third consecutive league defeat, their third 1-0 home loss of the season, and they have now gone five home matches without scoring. They sit in the relegation zone on five points. Arsenal moved to 18, three behind Manchester City.
The ‘finisher’ label, and why Madueke wants more
Arteta’s squad management has a vocabulary of its own. Players who come off the bench to change games are “finishers” — a deliberate reframing of the substitute role as a specialism rather than a demotion. The evidence supports it: Arsenal substitutes have contributed to 26 Premier League goals since the start of last season, more than any rival.
Madueke, though, did not join for £48.5m from Chelsea in the summer of 2025 to be a specialist. He is a natural right winger competing with Bukayo Saka, which has pushed him across to the left, and his season to date reads as one league start and two goals in all competitions. Last season brought eight goals and four assists in 43 appearances — productive, but not the output of a first-choice attacker.
What has changed is the trend since the international break. Madueke was Arsenal’s brightest attacker in the 2-1 win at Leeds on 10 October, set up the opener in the 3-0 defeat of Lille in the Champions League, and has now scored the winner at Forest. Christos Tzolis’s hamstring injury has widened the door, but the form is his own.
His own account of it was unglamorous. “Hang in there, stick to the gameplan, go out there and try to attack the opposition, be dangerous, be yourself and be good defensively as well.”
What it means from here
Arteta’s praise went beyond the football. He called Madueke “a special guy”, said he is “very much loved” around the dressing room, and noted that teammates go to him with personal problems — the sort of detail managers mention when they are explaining why a player keeps their trust through a difficult stretch of selection.
Practically, Arsenal’s fixture load makes the argument for Madueke without him having to make it himself. A title race three points in arrears, a Champions League campaign and a squad carrying injuries mean rotation is not optional, and Arteta now has recent proof that his left-side options can be shuffled without losing threat.
The harder question is whether Madueke can convert impact into starts. Everton visit the Emirates on 24 October, and Arteta must decide whether a player who has twice decided matches from the bench is better used there — or whether the finisher has earned 90 minutes.
Sunday did not settle it. It did make it a conversation Arsenal cannot avoid.
Sources: [BBC/Yahoo Sport](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/maduekes-anger-conviction-shows-hes-200024386.html) · [Sky Sports match report](https://www.skysports.com/football/nottingham-forest-vs-arsenal/report/559512) · [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/report/_/gameId/401878769) · [Goal player ratings](https://www.goal.com/en-us/lists/arsenal-player-ratings-nottingham-forest-premier-league/blt0cb20c0f3a470ba5) · [Glasner reaction](https://www.aol.com/articles/nottingham-forest-0-1-arsenal-182121000.html)
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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