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The news that Arsenal have paid £34m to sign Christos Tzolis will have many Norwich City supporters asking the same question: is that the same Christos Tzolis who struggled so badly at Carrow Road?
In a literal sense, yes, this is indeed the same winger who flopped at Norwich. But in many ways, no. Tzolis is a totally different player to the one who struck just three goals in 30 appearances in English football.
The 24-year-old arrives at the Emirates Stadium as the replacement for Leandro Trossard, and he makes this step after a remarkably productive couple of years in Belgium. A few weeks ago he was named the Belgian Pro League’s player of the year, having registered 22 goals and 29 assists for Club Brugge in all competitions.
Since his loan from Norwich to Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2023, Tzolis has demonstrated a level of consistency and creativity that has justified the hype that surrounded him in his teenage years. Such was his talent during his academy days at Greek side PAOK, Barcelona explored the possibility of signing him at the age of 13. He had scored 100 goals in 49 appearances for the under-13 side.
Arsenal are not the first Premier League club to have been impressed by the winger’s performances in Belgium. Crystal Palace also recognised his quality, making an attempt to sign him last summer. Both Arsenal and Palace, evidently, were not put off by his difficulties at Carrow Road.
When Norwich bought Tzolis for £9m in 2021, it was widely regarded as a coup. He was only 19, but he had already made eight appearances for Greece and had established himself as one of the most exciting young players in the European game.
“He was one of the whizz kids in Europe when we signed him,” says Stuart Webber, Norwich’s sporting director from 2017 to 2023. “Everyone knew who he was. It was just about who was brave enough to sign him.
“We’d been following him for years and watching him in under-17 matches. We had a brilliant scout, Mariela Nisotaki, who was Greek and had been tracking Christos for a long time.
“When we were promoted to the Premier League, we obviously became a more attractive club and could also afford him. Norwich played Liverpool very early in the season and Jürgen Klopp mentioned him before the match. He was already aware of what he had done at PAOK. We knew we had a good player on our hands.”
Tzolis started well at Norwich, scoring twice on his debut in a 6-0 Carabao Cup victory over Bournemouth, but quickly fell out of favour.
His cause was not helped by a missed penalty against Liverpool, when he was not the player on spot-kick duties. Daniel Farke, then Norwich manager, was furious. “Believe me, after I have spoken to him he will never do this mistake again,” he said.
The sacking of Farke in November 2021, followed by the appointment of Dean Smith, led to a change of shape that worked against Tzolis. “It was the hardest year of my career,” he told Het Nieuwsblad in 2024. “Life off the pitch wasn’t easy, either. A 19-year-old living on his own for the first time in a city where there isn’t much to do... it was anything but fun. Going for a coffee? Everything closed at seven in the evening.”
A loan move to FC Twente was not much better, largely because of a knee injury, and Tzolis moved to Fortuna Düsseldorf in the German second tier in August 2023. From there, he has rebuilt his career in spectacular fashion.
“He was very young, coming into the hardest league in the world where the physicality is off the charts,” Webber tells Telegraph Sport. “It didn’t work out because we [Norwich] were a struggling team in an unforgiving division. Attacking players don’t get 100 touches of the ball when they are playing for Norwich. If he’d been at an Arsenal he would have probably been successful straight away.”
Arsenal are attracted to players who have come through adversity and Tzolis ticks that box. Not only with the episode at Norwich, but also earlier in life. When he was 14, the Tzolis family left Greece for Germany because they were struggling financially. For Tzolis it meant saying goodbye to his friends, learning a new language and leaving the academy at PAOK. He joined a German club in Offenbach, near Frankfurt, and the standard was significantly lower than what he was used to in Greece.
Thankfully for Tzolis, the family returned home two years later, in 2018. PAOK had promised to keep the door open for him and they stayed true to their word, welcoming him back into the academy. He scored goal after goal in the youth ranks before he was promoted to the first team in 2020, in the midst of the Covid pandemic.
What sort of player are Arsenal signing? Ivan Leko, the Club Brugge manager, has described Tzolis as a “fantastic example” of a professional who is the first to arrive at training and the last to leave.
“He was always determined and obsessed with football,” Webber says. “Out of all the players I’ve worked with he was right up there on football knowledge. He was always doing extra bits and trying to make himself better.”
There is, of course, significant risk attached to this deal. The Belgian Pro League is not one of the world’s top divisions (Opta statisticians rank it as lower in quality than the Championship) and Arsenal have not enjoyed much success when buying players from outside Europe’s major five leagues.
Under Mikel Arteta, they have signed eight players from outside the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1: Pablo Marí (Brazil), Albert Sambi Lokonga (Belgium), Nuno Tavares (Portugal), Fábio Vieira (Portugal), Matt Turner (US), Marquinhos (Brazil), Jurriën Timber (Netherlands) and Viktor Gyökeres (Portugal). Of those eight, only Timber and Gyökeres can be considered successful acquisitions.
Tzolis unquestionably has the ability to make a difference in the final third. Upon signing for Arsenal, he described his style of play.
“I’m a direct player, I go for goals or assists,” said Tzolis. “That’s my point of view as an attacker, as a winger. I’m always hungry to score or to give the final pass to my team-mates.”
He is a crisp finisher with either foot and has the coolness required to make the correct decision in attack. Stylistically, there are clear similarities with Trossard, although Arsenal will hope that Tzolis is more deadly in front of goal.
“He’s not unbelievably quick, but he’s a very good goalscorer from a wide position,” Webber says. “He did really well in attacking teams like Fortuna Düsseldorf and Club Brugge and one thing he can do is finish. Get him in front of goal and he will score. Hopefully now he can show he’s the player we all thought he could be.”
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