Christos Tzolis: Arsenal's New Left Winger Aiming for Greatness
At Arsenal’s sun‑baked camp in Spain, the talk keeps drifting towards a fantasy. Vinicius Jr in red and white. A superstar dropped straight onto the left flank of the champions.
On Saturday in Catalonia, Christos Tzolis offered a sharp reminder that Arsenal already signed a left winger this summer – and he looks in no mood to play understudy.
The 24-year-old’s debut against Girona was not spectacular in scale, but it was telling. Picking up the ball on the left, he drove straight at his defender, cut inside with intent and drilled low into the far corner, a slight deflection doing nothing to dull the conviction of the finish. It was the kind of goal that announces a player’s personality as much as his technique.
Arteta has already told anyone who will listen that Arsenal fans will enjoy watching the Greek. The question now is how a new £34m signing reacts to the constant noise around another big-name arrival in his position.
“I’m confident as a player, so I don’t think about the future and what the club will do in this position,” Tzolis says, speaking to reporters at Arsenal’s base in Spain. The delivery is calm, not defensive. “I’m thinking how to improve and settle as fast as possible in the club because I have the opportunity to train directly with the team from the beginning of the season, to play the friendly games and then to go to official games.
“So it’s a chance to play directly from the beginning – and then it’s up to me to show the qualities and what I can bring in the team. I’m pretty confident that I will show it in the next games.”
Those numbers from Club Brugge – 51 goal contributions in 52 games last season – already read like a statement. The first impression in person is different: direct, honest, polite. Underneath that, there is steel. You do not leave Thessaloniki, tear up Belgium and land at the Premier League champions without it.
The call that changed his summer came while he was back home. His agent told him Arsenal were serious. Other clubs tried to muscle in. Once he had spoken a few times with Mikel Arteta, the decision was made.
Arteta believes Tzolis can grow into a cult figure at the Emirates, much as Leandro Trossard did before his move to Besiktas. That is a big comparison for a fanbase still attached to the Belgian’s knack for decisive moments. Winning them over will take more than a neat pre-season finish.
Tzolis is clear on the brief.
“He doesn’t want [me] to do things differently than I did in Club Brugge,” he explains of his manager’s instructions. “I think [I need] to be myself and to show on the pitch all the passion and desire to win. Because I really like to win games and to give everything.
“If I give 100 per cent for every game, every duel, who doesn’t like this? That’s the best thing for a football player and then always you have the support from the fans.”
‘Leonidas’ and the first impression
Ask Tzolis to define himself and he goes for three words: direct, creative, work rate. Inside Arsenal’s camp, another quality has grabbed attention.
He has already won one of the squad’s toughest pre-season tests – a brutal 1.4km shuttle run at full tilt: 20 metres and back, then 40, then 60, each distance repeated five times. It is the sort of drill that exposes anyone who cut corners over the summer.
One of the club’s fitness coaches has already given him a nickname: “Leonidas”, after Gerard Butler’s Spartan king in 300.
“There are not all the players here,” Tzolis points out, keen not to sound like he is beating his chest. “There are still some players that have to do the tests, of course. But so far I’m first in the fitness test. It’s pretty hard.
“I had the advantage that I started pre-season also with Brugge so I was already training for two weeks and always I wanted to keep myself fit during summer so I was ready. I came here ready, my fitness level and I was happy that I could show it here as well.”
The nickname fits neatly. He replaces another “Leo” in Trossard. He is also, in his own words, not the tallest, not the most physically imposing. A “small Greek force” asked to make an impact in a dressing room full of champions.
The way he has shaped his game points to the type of forward Arsenal have bought. He grew up studying David Villa, the Barcelona and Spain great.
“His body style is similar to mine,” Tzolis says. “We are not the tallest as strikers but in finishing terms, he was top level.
“I’m not saying I’m the level of David Villa but we have some similarities. He was not a striker, striker. He was an inside forward – a left pocket player who always went for goals.
“I see myself like this because I’m not always a typical wide winger. I go inside a lot and Villa, as a winger/inside forward, was top level.”
The echoes do not stop there. He also sees parts of his game in Alexis Sanchez, the former Arsenal talisman who terrorised full-backs from that same left side and wore the same shirt number Tzolis has just taken.
“Of course, I watched a lot of football and he was a top player for Arsenal as a left winger,” he says. “He’s one of the players I looked up to when I was younger. And also I see some similarities with him.
“But it’s not the reason I took the No 17. It was more that there were not so many options for the lower numbers, and there was also No 18 and 19 available. I had them in the past, so I didn’t want to use them again.
“So, I went for the No 17. It’s nice. Alexis Sanchez had No 17 – so I hope I will have the same success.”
The references are ambitious. Villa. Sanchez. Trossard. They set expectations, but they also reveal a player who knows exactly what sort of forward he wants to be: an inside-left predator, not a chalk-on-the-boots winger who simply hugs the touchline and crosses.
A champion walking into champions’ standards
Tzolis has already lived one version of this story. He joined Club Brugge as newly-crowned Belgian champions and watched the title slip away the following season. The lesson, he insists, is not to obsess over defending a crown.
“To defend a title I think you don’t have to think about it,” he says. “It’s more or less more difficult for the other teams because the pressure is there, not on the team who won the title.”
Arsenal’s history tells a different story. No Gunners side has retained the top-flight title since Herbert Chapman’s team in the 1930s. This group is trying to drag the club into a new era, one where winning the league is not a once-a-decade event.
What has struck Tzolis most is how that ambition seeps into the smallest details.
“For the pre-warming up in the gym to go to training and the intensity and how serious everybody is,” he says when asked what surprised him most on arrival. “From gym exercises to recovery sessions, everyone is demanding and trying to do as best as possible and that shows the high-level standards of this team.
“Even in pre-season, everyone is serious for the friendly games, for the training, for every exercise. Of course you expect it, but I didn’t know that before.
“When I see the training, and how hungry every player is for every training drill, that means everybody’s ready to compete at the highest level. And when you’re a player of Arsenal, you want compete for every title that’s possible.
“So, it’s not only about the Premier League, it’s about all the competitions we are playing for. And I see a clear mindset [from the players] and that everybody is on the same page to win titles here. I have seen that in training, and when you train like that in the game, it makes it even better.”
The club may still chase Vinicius Jr or another marquee name. Arteta will keep demanding more options, more variety, more firepower. That is the reality at the top of the Premier League.
Tzolis hears the noise. He just sees an opening.
He has the number. He has the goal on debut. He has a nickname forged on the training pitches before a competitive ball has been kicked.
Now comes the real test: can “Leonidas” carve out his own legend in a team that expects to rule England again?
