Christos Tzolis: From Norwich Setback to Arsenal's 'Leonidas'

For any Arsenal fan eager to know what Christos Tzolis might bring to the Premier League champions, the winger’s swiftly earned nickname at his new club might prove instructive. In the 2006 action film 300, the leading figure of King Leonidas guides a meagre bunch of Spartans against an overwhelmingly large invading army. Although doomed by the vast numerical disadvantage, Leonidas’s courage, determination and strength inspires his troops far beyond their means. It is his name that Arsenal’s fitness coaches have given their new Greek.

Within a week of his £34m move from Club Brugge, Tzolis had made himself conspicuous at Arsenal’s training ground by acing a host of pre-season tests, topping the charts in one particular fitness challenge that involves players running more than a kilometre over varying intervals. Modesty forbids him from revealing the remainder of his physical results but, with a smile, he concedes they were “good”.

Tzolis has been here before, albeit in vastly different circumstances. The last time he played Premier League football he was a teenager, starting three times for a Norwich side that finished bottom in 2021-22. The following campaign he started only three Championship games after an unsuccessful loan spell at the Dutch club Twente. When he headed on loan again, to Fortuna Düsseldorf, his time in East Anglia was over. But it was in Germany’s second tier that his trajectory shifted.

“In football it’s not always going up. You can have some setbacks and difficulties,” says Tzolis. “I learned a lot of things from this period at Norwich. That’s why I wanted to go to Düsseldorf to get the confidence back, because I knew I have the skills and qualities to score goals.

“Even though it was not the highest level, like playing in the Premier League, it’s good to play every game and have the feeling that you can score and create, and play good games. Then you go to the next level, which is Club Brugge, and I had two amazing years there because I made the decision to go to Düsseldorf and have the confidence.

“I feel now more ready to be in the Premier League. For me, I did the right decision after Norwich. I developed myself, I improved a lot. I’m not the same player I was in Norwich, 100%. I feel it in my body and also in my mindset. Now it’s my time to show that I’m ready and capable of playing in the Premier League.” It is a thoughtful explanation from a thoughtful man; someone who says he is eager to absorb the wealth of cultures within a football dressing room.

Tzolis’ bare numbers from Belgium certainly support his assertion of improvement. In two seasons at Club Brugge, he scored 33 goals. His spectacular 2025-26 campaign caught Arsenal’s eye, with 17 goals and 23 assists – 16 more goal involvements than any other player in the league – to help his side regain the title.

Life at Belgium’s dominant force was far removed from the difficult task that had presented itself at Norwich, where Tzolis made his Premier League debut at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium he will now call home. “The team was not ready for the Premier League and that makes it also difficult for me to adapt and to play how I could play,” he says. “I’m a more offensive player, and a player that plays for a team that has the ball and creates a lot of chances. With Norwich we had to defend more low and maybe to have some transition moments, but that was not working. Obviously the game time was not enough as a young player to develop and that was the bad thing of the Norwich situation.”

Tzolis was enjoying this summer in his home town of Thessaloniki when first informed of Arsenal’s desire to sign him as a replacement for Leandro Trossard on the left flank. He had two long conversations with Mikel Arteta, who informed Tzolis that he should do nothing different to that which lit up the Belgian Pro League. “It’s always difficult to say no to Arsenal,” says the Greece international. “There were some teams that talked and asked, but not concrete. Arsenal was directly the most concrete team and that made it easier for me to lock in and to say: ‘I want just to go there, I don’t want to hear anything else.’ It was an easy choice.”

Tzolis models his game on the Spanish great David Villa – “a left-pocket player who always went for goals” – and his first pre-season goal, in a 4-1 win against Girona on Saturday, arrived in precisely that fashion; cutting inside and curling the ball inside the far post.

Tzolis prides himself on his “passion and desire to win”, adding that he intends to “give 100% for every game, every duel”. Leonidas would demand nothing less.