Christos Tzolis Shines on Arsenal Debut
At Arsenal’s training base in Spain, the conversation keeps drifting back to a fantasy: Vinicius Jr in red and white, tearing down the left at the Emirates. But in Girona on Saturday, reality offered a sharp reminder. That flank already has a new face – and he wasted no time announcing himself.
Christos Tzolis, on his Arsenal debut, picked up the ball wide, drove at his man with a kind of stubborn certainty, chopped inside and drilled low into the far corner. A nick off a defender helped it on its way, but the intent was all his. One stride, one cut, one finish. Suddenly, the hypothetical future had to make room for the very real present.
A winger unfazed by the noise
The club’s pursuit of an elite left winger has been no secret. So how does the 24-year-old Greek feel about Arsenal still chasing a superstar in his position?
"Obviously I'm confident as a player, so I don't think about the future and what the club will do in this position," he says, speaking to reporters at the pre-season camp. No flinch. No hint of insecurity.
His focus is narrower. "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."
That confidence is not plucked from thin air. Tzolis arrives from Club Brugge on a £34m deal after a staggering return of 51 goal contributions in 52 games last season. The numbers scream end product. In person, he comes across as direct and polite, but with an edge – the kind of quiet drive that tends to survive the jump from smaller leagues to the Premier League spotlight.
He was back home in Thessaloniki when his agent called to say the English champions were circling. Other clubs tried to muscle in, but a few conversations with Mikel Arteta settled it. Once Arsenal were serious, his mind was made up.
Arteta believes Tzolis can become a cult figure at the Emirates, just as Leandro Trossard did before his move to Besiktas this summer. Winning over a fanbase that adored Trossard’s guile and goals is no small task. Tzolis’ plan is disarmingly simple.
"He doesn't want [me] to do things differently than I did in Club Brugge," he explains of his manager’s early 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 test passed
Ask Tzolis to define himself and he doesn’t hesitate: Direct. Creative. Work rate. Three words, three pillars of his game. Inside the camp, though, another trait has caught the eye.
Arsenal’s staff put the squad through one of their big pre-season markers: a brutal 1.4km shuttle run at full tilt – 20 metres and back, 40 and back, 60 and back, each distance repeated five times. It’s the sort of test that exposes anyone who cut corners over the summer.
Tzolis didn’t just survive it. He won it.
"There are not all the players here," he says, careful not to overplay it. "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 performance earned him a nickname from one of the fitness coaches: “Leonidas”, after Gerard Butler’s Spartan king in 300. It fits neatly. He is, after all, the direct replacement for another “Leo” in Trossard. And like the Spartan king leading a small force against a giant army, Tzolis is a relatively small winger stepping into a squad stacked with attacking talent and expectation.
He embraces the comparison in his own way, by talking not about warriors but about role models. One name keeps coming up: David Villa.
"His body style is similar to mine," he 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."
That “left pocket” description will appeal to Arsenal fans who grew up on the sight of forwards drifting in off the flank to decide games. So will the next comparison he reaches for.
Following the shadow of Alexis
Another player Tzolis mentions is Alexis Sanchez, the electric former Arsenal winger who arrived in 2014 and turned the No 17 shirt into a symbol of relentless attacking menace. Tzolis has taken the same number.
"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."
He is quick to stress that the shirt choice was practical, not romantic. "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."
That is an ambitious benchmark. Sanchez at his peak dragged Arsenal through games almost by force of will. Tzolis, though, is not here to tiptoe around legacies. He is here to add to them.
Inside a champion’s dressing room
Tzolis walks into a club still chasing something that has eluded it for nearly a century. No Arsenal side has defended a top-flight title since Herbert Chapman’s teams of the 1930s. That history hangs over this group, but the Greek winger has been struck by something more immediate: the daily standards.
"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. "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."
He has lived this scenario before. At Club Brugge, he joined newly crowned champions, only to see the title slip away the following season. That experience has shaped his view of what comes next.
"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."
It is a revealing line. Arsenal will be hunted, scrutinised, analysed to exhaustion. Tzolis, though, talks as if the champions’ burden can be turned into freedom, as if the real strain lies with those trying to knock them off the summit.
Between the dream of Vinicius Jr and the reality of a driven, sharp-edged Greek winger already scoring in red and white, Arsenal’s left flank has become one of the most intriguing storylines of the summer. Whether or not another star arrives, Tzolis has made his position clear.
He is not waiting for the future. He is already running straight at it.
