Arsenal beware! Ademola Lookman is on the Ballon d’Or shortlist and scored a hat-trick in last season’s Europa League final – the Atalanta star is a much different prospect to when he played in England
Arsenal’s Champions League campaign begins on Thursday evening with a tricky trip to Europa League winners Atalanta.
Manchester City and Real Madrid are the big favourites to win the competition, but the Gunners are not far behind as they look to lift Europe’s most prestigious trophy for the first time.
The first of eight games that stand between Arsenal and the knockout round is Atalanta at the Gerwiss Stadium in Bergamo. Although Mikel Arteta’s side are favourites to make the final, they only need to look at last season’s Liverpool to know that the Italian side are a major threat.
Liverpool beat Atalanta 1-0 in Bergamo in April, but that was only after the Serie A club had beaten the Reds 3-0 at Anfield in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final.
They defied expectations again in the final with a 3-0 victory to end Bayer Leverkusen’s unbeaten season hopes at the last minute. It is their hat-trick hero of the night, Ademola Lookman, who the Gunners will probably have to be most wary of on Thursday.
Ademola Lookman will be hoping to carry his form from last year’s Europa League final into the Champions League, starting with a clash against Premier League giants Arsenal.
Lookman was unplayable as he helped his team beat previously unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen by scoring the first hat-trick in a major European final since 1975
Lookman struggled during spells at three Premier League clubs, including Leicester, but is now a Ballon d’Or contender and poses a very different threat to Mikel Arteta’s Gunners
Lookman has been underwhelming in the previous four games against Arsenal but will be one of Atalanta’s biggest threats in Thursday night’s Champions League clash in Bergamo
Arsenal fans will remember little of Lookman from the four previous times they encountered him during his time in the Premier League.
Lookman failed to impress in any of those games, with his only start coming in April 2021 when Fulham drew 1-1 at the Emirates Stadium.
His final Premier League appearance came as a 77th-minute substitute for Leicester in a 4–1 win over Southampton on the final day of the 2021–22 season.
Two years on, Lookman is a very different talent to the one who failed to shine in the Premier League.
Firstly, he is a contender for the Ballon d’Or, something few would have expected when he played in the English top division.
Some might say that the nomination was due to just one performance. While this was indeed a major factor in his inclusion in the 30-man shortlist, it was also Lookman’s best season of his career.
He scored 17 goals and provided 10 assists for Atalanta in all competitions and played a major role in Nigeria reaching the final of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Lookman, England’s former U20 World Cup champion, scored the only goal in the quarter-final against Angola before they were beaten 2-1 by Ivory Coast in the final.
Lookman scored 17 goals and provided 10 assists for Atalanta in all competitions last season
His appearance in the Europa League final may have frustrated the England squad after he announced his intention to play for Nigeria two years ago.
His performance against Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final showed how much progress he has made since his time in England, as he became the first player since 1975 to score a hat-trick in a major European final.
His first goal came in the opening 11 minutes of the game, when he found an open spot in the penalty area and tapped Douglas Zappacosta’s cross into the net from the edge of the box.
Shortly afterwards, he doubled the Serie A side’s lead with a superb shot from distance, sliding past a defender and curling the ball low into the far corner from the outside of the penalty area.
His third goal was perhaps the best of the series. Lookman received the ball on the edge of the Leverkusen penalty area, then dipped his head, flicked the ball into the area and fired a powerful left-footed shot into the top corner of the net.
It was a performance that, with Euro 2024 in mind, may have irritated the England squad for letting Lookman slip through their fingers.
The London-born striker signed for Nigeria two years ago, but the England youth international is said to have given former England manager Gareth Southgate a strong argument to consider whether he was still eligible to play for England.
There were high expectations for Lookman during his time at Charlton. He came across him by chance in the Sunday League in South London, where he was playing with his friends at Waterloo, and he was offered a scholarship.
His big breakthrough came in January 2017 when he joined Everton for £11million after making 49 first-team appearances for the Addicks.
Lookman initially made his breakthrough at Charlton, before they sold him to Everton for £11million at the age of 19
Lookman struggled at Everton and was seemingly labelled a Premier League flop after failing to impress during loan spells at Leicester City and Fulham
Lookman has had a fascinating journey from the cages of Peckham to European glory
However, as Mail Sport previously reported, sources on Merseyside said it was the wrong place at the wrong time and that Lookman struggled to acclimatise to the new environment outside London as a young man.
There was a disagreement with Under-23 manager David Unsworth and it was said that he was acting like a ‘lost soul’ within the club, effectively indicating to then manager Sam Allardyce that his playing style did not suit him.
What followed wasn’t much better – a move to Leipzig and loans to Fulham and Leicester – and it’s safe to say he only felt at home at two clubs, his first and his current one.
He has scored 33 goals for Atalanta, and after missing the Lookman started his three games with an injury but returned for the Serie A side in their 3-2 win over Fiorentina on Sunday.
He made an immediate impression with a goal and an assist, which gave him a good feeling for the match against Arsenal on Thursday.
Lookman missed Atalanta’s first three Serie A games but made an immediate impression on his return against Fiorentina, scoring a goal and providing an assist (pictured with Mateo Retegui)
Lookman comes off a summer in which he was linked with a number of teams, including the Gunners.
The Gunners were even reported to have made a £42.5million bid for Lookman, which would have sent Jakub Kiwior in the opposite direction.
But Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini, who even admitted that ‘no one could ever have imagined’ Lookman would make such progress, was determined to keep his player.
Before Thursday’s match, Lookman was quoted as saying by Tutto Atalanta: ‘Arsenal are a very strong team and I know what to expect from them. Playing against a team of that level is always a difficult challenge, but we are ready.
‘We earned this place in the Champions League thanks to our great last season and we want to show that we deserve to be here.’
Lookman is determined to transfer his Europa League form to Europe’s most prestigious competition, starting at Arsenal.