I’m an unemployed ex-Arsenal star… I’m training with little-known, hand-picked squad in desperate bid to find new club

A FORMER Arsenal star has lifted the lid on their bid to find a new club.

The defender, 32, played 70 times for the Gunners between 2011 and 2019.

After three loan moves away from the Emirates he left permanently five years ago, landing a switch to Nottingham Forest.

He last played in English football for the Tricky Trees in 2021, before heading Down Under to continue his career in the A-League.

Following three years in Australia, the Harlow-born ace is back in the UK as a free agent, and is determined to prove his fitness to a prospective new club.

He recently sat down with former England goalkeeper Ben Foster on the “Fozcast” to describe his search for a new club, and how he has kept fit while training with a whole squad of free agents.

During their conversation, Carl Jenkinson admitted that he stumbled into the PFA scheme while training with pal and ex-Brentford centre-back Charlie Goode.

“I didn’t know about it until about five weeks in,” he admitted. “It was just through word of mouth.

“One of the lads I was training with on my own, who used to play for Brentford, Charlie Goode, who’s now at Stevenage – he just said to me one day as we were doing a session with a coach ‘have you heard about this PFA programme?’

“I didn’t know anything about it. He said ‘I’ll send you over the details tonight’ and started explaining what it was all about.

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“It was literally the next day I said ‘look, I’ve read through all the details, it sounds unbelievable,’ It’s exactly what we need.

“I said ‘Chaz, you need to be there as well’. So we both, literally the day after, went up there.”

Foster, who retired last year following a spell at Wrexham, then explained that to be part of the PFA scheme you have to be a footballer, member of the union, and out of contract to be eligible to join up with the squad.

It was then pointed out that the squad is 30-strong, and that with around 600 professional footballers released in England every year, the process is not that simple.

Jenkinson continued: “It’s not if you apply, you’re in. It’s an application process.”

He then revealed that the CEO had told him that the camp was aimed more at experienced pros, rather than those that had been released straight from academies.

Goode, 29, went on to sign for League One Stevenage on August 5, and has since gone on to make six appearances in all competitions.

But Jenkinson, who earned one England cap in 2012, remains without a club.

With the PFA scheme having finished, the full-back revealed that he is still training and keeping fit as he hopes to return to the game.

Jenkinson then admitted that clubs are more focused on recruiting young players, and that he would have liked the PFA camp to extend beyond the end of the summer transfer window.

When Foster pointed out that clubs are looking to sign players aged, “30, 31, 32 max” – Jenkinson replied: “I’d actually say less.

“Just from feedback I’ve had from clubs, not just for myself, but for some of my mates – you’re talking 27 these days.

“One of my pals was talking to a Premier League club, and they were like ‘we don’t sign players over 27’.

During his time at Arsenal, Jenkinson won the FA Cup in 2014.

He also picked up silverware Down Under, winning the A-League Premiership with Melbourne City.