Reiss Nelson looks a player… I’d put him near the top of the heap in the academy. Hoping we don’t lose WIllock this summer. We have a pretty good youth set up atm, but so do our competitors.
I really though AMN could break through, but haven’t heard much about Crowley or Zelalem for a bit. Nkwali looks interesting as well. And as you said, Malen looks quite interesting.
Definitely on the FT squad Bellerin, Iwobi, and Holding are good shouts that I would agree with - just hope they actually develop well. For some reason I am scarred from the recent crop really going nowhere (Theo, Ramsey, Wilshere, Coq, Ox, etc.) over a few years (or worse, backwards).
Mate likewise. Ever since Fabregas left i looked at Wilshere like some kind of demigod of football.
Future England and Arsenal captain, had all the English footballing tropes being an archtypal hardman with passion, but he had a clear spanish technical influence, which led the world to heap praise on him. The Brazil game left no doubt in my mind he had what it took to go shoulder to shoulder with the great footballing cultures of the world, and leave his mark.
But alas, those fucking glass ankles of his. Hes a modern day Achilles.
Still, despite the failed hype of many past and present Arsenal men (ahem, Ramsey), it would be ignorant to believe we don’t have potential, because we really, truely do.
Its all relative though. Look at our young attacking talent vis-a-vis other teams. United have Rashford and Martial, City have Jesus and Sane, Spurs have Alli and Kane who are both still super young, Chelsea has players like Abraham and Traore on loan. We have fucking Donyell Malen and Chris Willock.
The basic reality is that Wenger built a team to win in the past few years and, in so doing, neglected investment in elite young attacking talents while our competitors were buying them up and/or developing them. So we have a few intriguing youth players but we’re way behind in terms of elite young talent. We have a team that isn’t good enough to win in the present and isn’t well poised to win in the future.
You are 100% spot on, in that only Bellerin can be held in the same regard as Rashford, Sane and Alli. etc.
But Kane was never highly rated, and even now people (stupid people) dispute his talent. But a lot can change in a season or two.
Two years ago Mahrez and Kante were not on anyones shopping lists, neither were Dembele, Martial (or was he the year before?). Prior to this season no one knew Mbappe.
Had we signed any of these people, the same people now saying we don’t sign potential talent, would be saying ‘lol unknown players instead of established names’.
I have said this all along too, damned if you do damned if you dont. If you cannot sign WC players in certain positions then we should sign a talent. Problem is people say ‘we have xyz in the bank we should buy a big name’ In all honesty though (especially now) who will choose us if RM or Manu or Mancity, bayern come calling not many but at the same time if we can get one once in a while great.
People dont like the idea of buying talent because it takes time to develop and we have all gotten impatient now, but WC players are hard to come by especially strikers, so what choice do we have? Then when we do sign a talent it is like ‘ah fucking hell another player we bought for 1m in the bargain bin we know what that means dont we’
Look at what Holding has become though, if we spent 50m for stones or some other defender and we saw holding at a club like the spuds everyone would be crowing on saying ‘fucking wenger and the board and the scouts why have they not spotted this player we never get any talent fucking clueless prats’
It was only the first team that I meant.
I would agree Iwobi and Holding are certainly potential first team players.
But there are very few players in the starting line up that are are under the age of 25, and that’s including Chamberlain, if you include him as a starting player.
Compared to the other top clubs we used to have plenty of young talented players but even that doesn’t seem to be the case any more.
The team this season pretty much consists of nearly all full international players with loads of experience and we have also had very few injuries, and that was my point, that there really is no excuse for failing g to get a top four place.
We also had Alexis having a 24 goal/ 10 assist season and still couldn’t manage a top 4 finish, I’m really looking forward to seeing what we can manage next term.
[quote="]
“Özil wasn’t available for large periods. Was he injured, wasn’t he? Was it sickness, was it injury? He didn’t seem to be around when they needed him most.
“Sánchez then had an incident at the club. It felt like he threw his toys out of the cot for a little while. We don’t really know exactly what happened.
“All of that was I think, as a result that these guys were maybe overindulged a little bit.”[/quote]
Yeah, Nelson is #1 for sure, what he’s doing at his age and his qualities means he has an actual real shot at making it at the top level. But I’m not sure there’s much that separates him from Angel Gomes at Utd or Marcus Edwards at Tottenham, they would seem to be top, top english (the english part obviously represents an important implicit disclaimer ) prospects (I haven’t been following youth players as much this season so I don’t know how well these two are doing). Willock for me would be second just because I’ve seen enough of him that I like his brain and I die for his close control, but again, whether he makes it at the top level is up in the air, he’s pretty old to have not done anything at the top level yet so you can’t really put any bets on him. Anyways it seems like we’re going to lose him. With Willock would probably be Bielik, Jeff (who doesn’t really impress but with the Diaby comparisons it’s impossible not for me to get starry eyed with him) and Nketiah and Malen, and Trae Coyle and Smith-Rowe look interesting from the schoolboys (edit: Tyreece John-Jules also tears it up at schoolboy levels and U16 for England, so he could be one to watch too…actually we have by far the most U16 players in the England squad so the schoolboys look like a good crop, obviously means very little at that stage though).
Nwakali I have no idea but he was obviously highly rated so he maybe goes in there just behind Nelson as the most likely to make it. Maitland-Niles looks like he could make it as a squad type player.
@Burgundy I think knows most about youth football here from his twitter connex and just in general, he can probably weigh in better than I can. I think we have a pretty nice current crop but I don’t know how it would weigh up compared to others tbh, it’s impossible when you only really follow one academy…I know a bit, just from bits of pieces that leak into the mainstream press, about Madrid and Barça’s but hard to be objective comparing with ours. @Oliver
Unless he’s sacked or he dies on the job, I don’t see him ever stepping aside. He will be always be of the mind “next season I will turn it around”, a arrogant, stubborn, over the hill old man is a dangerous one to have leading the ship. Plus the arrogance of his interviews over the last two or three years, really has made me dislike him. As long as he’s here I’m writing off every season.
If he stays, I don’t see him missing out on top 4 or the way the season went really changing him at all. You will still see him penny pinching and leaving us short once again at the start of the season, blaming it on not having CL football he has his excuse. He will back this side of failures and tell us they will win the PL. He throw a dig at the fans, press and ex players wanting him out. I don’t see him putting too much into the Europa League until we’re out of the title race, so expect the B team for a large part of it. He won’t replace Alexis or Ozil if they leave. We be back around to fans infighting, the pundits writing us off and things getting far more abusive towards Wenger after a few bad results.
I fully expect Alexis too leave, Ozil unless a big club comes in for him I could see him staying. I think Wenger new contract will be announced a week or two after the FA Cup final.
I would start a GoFundMe campaign to get Wenger to wear a go pro while watching Arsenal games so we could all be witness to the first spontaneous head explosion in human history.
No talk of a new manager anymore. Have you noticed that? Think Wenger is gonna announce his new contract in june when everything has cooled down a bit.
I think you might be right.
It was his decision a few months ago, when he said “I’m going to make an announcement soon” that destabilised the team, and ultimately cost us CL football.
That will go down as possibly his biggest clanger.
It not only cost us a top four place, it could also mean losing our best players, and any chance we had of buying a world class striker.
I’m still hoping Kroenke will sell, which will mean Usmanov will be our biggest asset.
I can’t see him putting up with the way the club has stagnated, he is unscrupulous and will do what ever it takes to get this mess turned around, with or without Wenger.
I never thought I would say this but I don’t care what happens anymore. If he stays or leaves, if Kroenke sells or not. Total apathy. I’m just tired of getting my hopes up that this whole farce will end. There’s no logic whatsoever in why Wenger can be allowed to stay. But in the la la land that is the Arsenal boardroom it probably makes perfect sense.
Like @Ocke im starting to feel more detached from this club by the week with this fucking about by Wenger.
Its cup final week and im hardly feeling anything toward it yet.
This fucking manipulating of the fans by his fucking arrogance over the decision and incompetence of the board just leaves me cold tbh.
If he announced he was stepping down now the uplift and support the team, fanbase, and Wenger would get saturday would be near bloody unbeatable.
) prospects (I haven’t been following youth players as much this season so I don’t know how well these two are doing). Willock for me would be second just because I’ve seen enough of him that I like his brain and I die for his close control, but again, whether he makes it at the top level is up in the air, he’s pretty old to have not done anything at the top level yet so you can’t really put any bets on him. Anyways it seems like we’re going to lose him. With Willock would probably be Bielik, Jeff (who doesn’t really impress but with the Diaby comparisons it’s impossible not for me to get starry eyed with him) and Nketiah and Malen, and Trae Coyle and Smith-Rowe look interesting from the schoolboys (edit: Tyreece John-Jules also tears it up at schoolboy levels and U16 for England, so he could be one to watch too…actually we have by far the most U16 players in the England squad so the schoolboys look like a good crop, obviously means very little at that stage though).