Arsenal defender Oleksandr Zinchenko has labelled the 2024–25 season the worst of his career, admitting he struggled to come to terms with his drastic reduction in minutes.
A regular starter in previous seasons under Mikel Arteta, Zinchenko saw his minutes more than halved last year as a combination of injuries and the emergence of Myles Lewis-Skelly restricted him to just over 500 minutes in the Premier League.
In his upcoming autobiography, Believe, Zinchenko penned an emotional response to his dimished role, opening up on the mental struggles that came with realising he had lost his manager’s trust.
“A small problem with my calf kept me out of action in the month of September,” Zinchenko writes (via The Athletic). “A knock here and there. But I was otherwise fit for most of the campaign.
“I was basically out of the starting XI altogether, bar a few isolated matches. In pure personal terms, it was easily the worst season I ever experienced as a professional.”
The Ukraine left back continued: “A player who doesn’t play is nothing. It’s one thing when your body lets you down. That can happen. But going from one of the established players of the side to unused sub is much harder to deal with. The sense of rejection you feel if your manager no longer believes in you can take the stuffing out of you, even if you’re the most resilient guy on the planet.
“Sitting on the bench in the Premier League for a very generous wage packet is obviously still a privilege, the kind of problem that billions of people on this planet would swap their much tougher lives for in a heartbeat. Trust me, as a Ukrainian, I’m aware of that. Every single minute.
“But every footballer started playing because they love to play the game. A big part of your life is missing without it. Imagine this little boy who’s dedicated his entire existence to becoming good at one particular thing and then finds at 28 that he’s essentially no longer needed, that there are others who can do the job for him. It’s not a nice feeling.”
The situation has sparked significant speculation over Zinchenko’s future with Arsenal, and the 28-year-old suggested he will have to evaluate his options this summer as he seeks to rediscover his happiness.
“I’m a professional and it’s my job to get on with it,” he explains. “At Arsenal, we don’t have many egos, everyone understands their role, their duties and responsibilities. I’m not the guy that comes in, shows a bad face and spreads bad vibes, I still try to lighten the mood with a few jokes and make people smile. I tried my very best to stay positive inside.
“I did everything asked of me and was happy to play in any position for the subs’ XI who stand in for the next opponents in training. Maybe some players might react differently, they might feel slighted having to pretend they’re centre backs when they’re wingers, or the other way around.
“But not me. It doesn’t bother me at all. I see it as an opportunity to learn and to show that I will do whatever is necessary to play my part.
“I’ve never been a player who runs to the manager, complains or asks tonnes of questions. I can only blame myself. If I don’t play, it means that I didn’t work hard enough, didn’t do enough, didn’t play well enough.
“Let’s see what time will bring. Because I still want to play football. I want to enjoy the game and come back with a smile on my face in the evening.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Worst Season Ever’—Oleksandr Zinchenko Reflects on Reduced Arsenal Role, Uncertain Future.
