Christos Tzolis: Arsenal's New Winger Making Waves

At Arsenal’s sun‑drenched camp in Spain, the talk keeps drifting to Vinicius Jr and the possibility of another superstar winger arriving before the window shuts. Yet on Saturday in Girona, the reminder was sharp and immediate: there is already a new left-sided threat in red and white.

Christos Tzolis needed only one real moment.

On his debut, he picked up the ball on the flank, drove at his defender with a swagger that belongs in this league, cut inside and drilled low into the far corner. A nick off a defender helped it on its way, but the intent was all his. Head down, decision made, finish delivered.

For a fanbase daydreaming about Vinicius, it was a timely jolt. This is the winger who actually wears their shirt.

A winger unfazed by the noise

The question hangs over him already: how does it feel to hear your club so publicly linked with another left winger who would, on paper, start ahead of you?

“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 told reporters at Arsenal’s camp, his first media appearance since the move from Club Brugge.

His focus is narrower. Sharper.

“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.”

It is the voice of a player who knows his numbers. Fifty-one goal contributions in 52 games last season for Club Brugge is not the profile of a squad filler. Arsenal paid £34m for a winger who arrives not as a prospect, but as a weapon in his prime years.

He speaks softly, politely, but every answer carries the same undertone: he has not come to London to be a footnote.

Arteta’s new project – and a fanbase to win over

Mikel Arteta sees something in him that Arsenal supporters used to adore in Leandro Trossard. The manager believes Tzolis can grow into that kind of cult figure, the clever, decisive attacker who bends tight games his way.

Not everyone in the stands is convinced yet. Many barely knew his name before the deal accelerated. So how does he plan to win them?

“He doesn't want [me] to do things differently than I did in Club Brugge,” Tzolis said of his conversations with Arteta.

“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.”

Direct. Creative. Work rate. Those are the three qualities he picks out as his calling cards. At Arsenal, one more has already caught the eye.

‘Leonidas’ arrives

The club’s sports science team put the players through a brutal 1.4km fitness test in pre-season: 20 metres and back, 40 and back, 60 and back, each distance repeated five times. It’s the kind of drill that exposes anyone who cut corners over the summer.

Tzolis didn’t just survive it. He won it.

The 24-year-old finished first among those tested so far, earning a nickname from one of the fitness coaches: “Leonidas”, after the Spartan king made famous by Gerard Butler in 300.

“There are not all the players here,” he said, keen not to sound like he is already top of the entire squad. “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. He replaces another “Leo” in Trossard, who has left for Besiktas. And like the Spartan king, Tzolis is a “small Greek force” taking on giants, trying to carve out space in an attack packed with established stars.

Modelled on Villa, echoes of Alexis

Ask Tzolis who he studied and the answer reveals how he sees himself.

He talks first about David Villa, the Barcelona and Spain great whose game blended striker’s ruthlessness with winger’s movement.

“His body style is similar to mine,” Tzolis said. “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 phrase – “left pocket player” – is exactly what Arteta has craved at times: someone who starts wide, appears between the lines and finishes like a No 9.

The other reference point will stir something in Arsenal hearts. Alexis Sanchez, the relentless Chilean who wore No 17 and terrorised defences from the left, was another player Tzolis studied closely.

“Of course, I watched a lot of football and he was a top player for Arsenal as a left winger,” he said. “He's one of the players I looked up to when I was younger. And also I see some similarities with him.”

Tzolis now wears the same number, though he insists that was circumstance rather than homage.

“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 bar has been set very high. He doesn’t flinch when it’s mentioned.

Inside a title-defending machine

Tzolis has joined a club in a very different phase to the one Alexis walked into. Arsenal are no longer chasing their first Premier League crown in years; they are trying to hold on to it.

No Arsenal side has defended the top-flight title since Herbert Chapman’s teams of the 1930s. That historical weight sits quietly in the background of this pre-season, but you feel it in the way the players train.

“For the pre-warming up in the gym to go to training and the intensity and how serious everybody is,” Tzolis said when asked what surprised him most at London Colney and on tour.

“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 the other side of this story. At Club Brugge, he arrived at newly crowned champions and watched the title slip away the following season. The lesson, he insists, is not to obsess over the defence of the crown.

“To defend a title I think you don't have to think about it,” he said. “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 an intriguing take. Arsenal will be hunted, but in his mind, the real strain lies with those who failed last time and now must catch them.

Somewhere between that theory and the reality of a long Premier League season, Tzolis will discover how true it is.

For now, the picture is simpler. A 24-year-old Greek winger, fresh from a prolific year in Belgium, has walked into the champions’ dressing room, topped their fitness charts, scored on debut and shrugged off the noise about potential new signings.

Vinicius Jr may or may not arrive. Arsenal may yet add another superstar to that left flank.

Tzolis’ response has been clear enough: if someone wants his place, they will have to take it from “Leonidas” first.