Sliding doors

The integration of talented academy players at a club like Arsenal has always been a little bit chicken and egg. Do clubs and coaches create space for young players or do young players create the path themselves? The proper answer is probably that it is a little bit of both (*winks knowingly at Football Cliches listeners*).

How academy players are integrated has always been a little random and open to circumstance. A couple of decades ago now, Arsene Wenger decided to use the League Cup as a kind of bridge between U21 football and the Premier League. In recent years, the Europa League group stage provided Arsenal with another diet version of the elite level to blood young players. Let’s call it ‘I can’t believe it’s not elite competition.’

Happily, the Europa League group stage is no longer on Arsenal’s radar but it does create a small issue in smoothing the path of players like Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis Skelly to the first team. We often misremember that even the club’s most successful academy products (or players brought in so young they might as well have been) almost always have that bridging experience before becoming first team regulars.

Bukayo Saka’s first two senior Arsenal goals occurred in the Europa League group stage in the winter of 2019, his third came in an FA Cup tie at Bournemouth. It is easy to forget that Saka was an unused sub in the 2020 FA Cup Final against Chelsea. His is one of the most meteoric rises of any Arsenal academy player in the club’s history and he still experienced that ‘bridge’ season where he mainly played cup matches until an injury crisis saw him blooded in the first team at left-back.

Likewise, Jack Wilshere’s ascension was not quite as immediate as the collective memory recalls. Wilshere rose to prominence during the summer 2008 Emirates Cup followed by an outstanding display at home to Sheffield United in the League Cup in September 2008 (which Arsenal won 6-0). The following weekend he made his Premier League debut from the bench at Ewood Park with Arsenal leading 4-0.

But it was another two seasons before Wilshere truly broke through. In January 2010, he went on loan to Bolton Wanderers because his cameo appearances during the first half of the 2009-10 season lacked the stardust of his debut offerings. Bolton was his bridging loan, as it were but that occurred 18 months after he burst onto the scene. There were growing pains in that intermediate time.

In 2004-05, Cesc Fabregas burst into the limelight with a series of impressive early season displays. Gilberto Silva had picked up a back injury, Patrick Vieira missed pre-season through a mixture of Euro 2004 and doubts about his future at the club, while Edu played at Copa America with Brazil. It meant that Fabregas was promoted more quickly than anticipated.

Even so, he played in five League Cup games during 2003-04. Like Saka and Wilshere, he served something of an apprenticeship before making his mark on the first team. When circumstance gave him an opportunity, he had a little experience to call on. The same was true of Ashley Cole.

Sylvinho’s ’administrative issues’ meant he was promoted to first choice left-back out of necessity as much as anything. But when that circumstance handed him his chance, he’d had a successful loan spell at Crystal Palace to cut his teeth. All of this is a lengthy preamble to suppose what might happen next with Ethan Nwaneri, who came on for the last ten minutes of Sunday’s North London derby win.

Nwaneri made his debut as a 15-year-old against Brentford two years ago, making him the youngest player in the club’s history by some distance. At the time, the club were trying to convince him to sign a new contract so I don’t doubt there was some politicking in the decision to give him a those minutes with the Gunners 3-0 up. The minutes he played on Sunday were necessary for the team.

Contract discussions with precocious young players must be so difficult because a manager can’t really say, ‘we are going to sell everyone in your position so that you can play.’ Especially when you are the sort of team that is aiming for over 90 Premier League points in a season. But clearly you have to give those players some sense that there is a path to the first team.

For Nwaneri, a couple of trees have been felled, so to speak, with the sale of Emile Smith Rowe and the loan of Fabio Vieira back to Porto. I have a hunch that Arteta would have liked to keep Smith Rowe as a squad player if he possibly could have, but clearly realised the player’s need for regular football and the economic need to cash in on a squad player and reinvest the funds.

Smith Rowe’s sale has been amended for in the market with the arrival of Mikel Merino, it is the loaning out of Vieira that has potentially unlocked the door for Nwaneri. We are told that the loan was more Vieira’s idea than Arsenal’s so it doesn’t look as though Arteta and Arsenal have consciously cleared a path for Nwaneri.

At the same time, I imagine Arteta signed off on Vieira’s desire to rediscover his mojo back home because of his faith in Nwaneri’s talent. I don’t think Arteta is in the business of leaving his squad short of cover based solely on what players want. Fast forward a few weeks and injuries to Merino and Odegaard have created a situation where Nwaneri is one of the senior creative attacking options on the bench at minimum.

The collective Arsenal memory has also misremembered that the speed of Fabregas’ rise was partially accidental- this isn’t a criticism of Arsene Wenger’s management of the player, far from it. Part of the skill of being a manager is recognising happy accidents and not interrupting them, as Arteta has done with Kai Havertz’s suitability as first choice striker.

The story goes that Arsenal happily sold Patrick Vieira in the summer of 2005 to beat the path for Fabregas. This forgets the key detail that Arsenal subsequently spent the whole summer trying and failing to lure Julio Baptista away from Sevilla as Wenger sought to replace some of Vieira’s more physical qualities. Fabregas replaced Vieira’s technical qualities, the plan was really to replace Vieira by committee.

It didn’t pan out that way and, in the end, after a couple of seasons of suffering a physical deficit in midfield, Mathieu Flamini eventually provided the muscle (for one season). Flamini’s brief soirée into the limelight was also a happy accident that Wenger correctly chose not to interrupt.

The way in which young players are integrated into elite teams is not straight forward and not always hugely strategic. Sometimes injuries open a door- Hector Bellerin’s Arsenal career was kickstarted by an injury to Mathieu Debuchy and then curtailed by a bad knee injury he incurred a few seasons later.

Football can be random, it can be kind and it can be cruel and all of this is baked into chaos of academy talent trying to bridge the gap from youth starlet to first-team mainstay. The message to talents as obvious as Nwaneri’s then, surely, is wait for circumstance to go your way and be ready when it does. That time could be upon us. Nobody opens a door for you but when the hinges of the lock start to loosen, be ready to kick it down.

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