Sanjay Sathya

Noni Madueke Suddenly Looked Like Anime’s Satoru Gojo Mid-Game

Arsenal, Football Fashion, Noni Madueke, Premier League

Noni Madueke has been in poor run of form, unable to contribute any better than his counterparts. Brought in for £48 million, the Englishman has hardly made any justice, scoring just once in 16 games in the Premier League. His only good contributions have been the three goals in Champions League, one against Bayern Munich in a tabletop battle. However, the returns in England are not on par with the expectations, particularly when he already has enough exposure of the Premier League.

Noni Madueke is familiar with the city of London. Arsenal are not the first London team to have Madueke in their squad. Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur laid the platform for Madueke in their respective Youth Academies, before he moved to Netherlands to play for PSV Eindhoven in 2018. Rising from their U-17 team, Madueke soon debuted for the Dutch giants in the following year. After 5 years at the club, Madueke returned to England, as Chelsea signed him in 2023.

Noni Madueke had a decent stint at Chelsea winning two silverwares, UEFA Conference League and Club World Cup. But soon before they were crowned champions, Madueke had already signed for Arsenal. One thing in common between each of his transfers, since his PSV days, was his headband.

Madueke had adopted his hairstyle and has continued to maintain the same for a long time. It is made with a high skin fade on the sides and back, hanging dreadlocks bleached on the tips. During the matches, he ties the dreadlocks into a pony tail, leaving out two thin lines alone on the sides. He puts on a band on his forehead, covering the dreadlocks, to prevent any distractions while playing.

This has been a norm across his playing career continuing even during his Chelsea days and now in Arsenal.

But not in his dreams, he would have guessed, it would bring him in comparison to a popular Anime character. During their game against Sunderland, in the 55th minute, Madueke had a battle with Sunderland striker, Brian Brobbey for the ball. During the altercation, Brobbey had forcefully pulled down, Madueke’s headband. This had blocked his visibility but gave him a similar look of Satoru Gojo, an Anime character from the Jujutsu Kaisen manga series.

Satoru Gojo, uses a blindfold, to control the power of his six eyes, which will drain out his eyes if left open. For a moment, Madueke looked blindfolded in the game and claimed it to be a foul.

Not just Gojo, the incident made people realize, he is a close lookalike of youtuber and former boxer, KSI.

A perception of the usage of headband, already in circulation was that Madueke was trying to hide his hairline. The headband displacement had enough people to have a look at his forehead and hairline.

Madueke’s unfortunate instance had brought enough troll on him over his personal choices. It is important that he puts up his performance do the talk on the pitch, to gain the supporters trust.

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