When coaches develop talent for their academies, they find themselves in a kind of paradox where they have to earn opportunities, not give them. At the same time, you need to show players the way to the first team. Otherwise, players will happily continue their progress elsewhere. Coaches must balance the risk of players learning on the clock (sometimes the hard way), but they also need to take risks to leverage their players’ potential.
As Arsene Wenger said, ‘Young players’ training is paid for with points. If I take on a 20-year-old centre-back, I know he’s going to take points away from me during the season and I have to stand up for that. A less talented 28-year-old would cost fewer points. But we have players until 23/24.’ Trying to hit the 90 points needed to win the league title makes it even more difficult to offset that score.
However, Arteta has shown faith in youth during his time at Arsenal. Even if Bukayo Saka’s talent is so obvious that even the most reluctant manager would think he would capitalize on it, the faith he has shown in players like Saliba and Martinelli shows when Arteta thinks a player is ready. He will be on their side.
The departures of Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe last summer created space for Ethan Nwaneri to take on a bigger role. Arsenal almost certainly lost points during Odegaard’s absence at the start of the season due to a creative shortfall that Nwaneri was deemed unprepared to fill. However, without giving the player a clearer path to first-team minutes, he will probably not be signing his first professional contract until March 2024.
The current youth player market is very competitive and overseas clubs have also shown a willingness to tap into the UK’s market for young talent. When Nwaneri signed his first professional contract in March, I’m sure Arteta told the player that the uncertain futures of Smith Rowe and Vieira could be an opportunity for him. Arteta had to swallow Odegaard’s deficit to protect Nwaneri’s long-term future.
Arteta’s recent statement about the possibility of turning Nwaneri into a striker was really interesting. ‘I think another position he could improve in is number nine. He has an incredible ability to get in front of goal, look at the goal and put the ball in the back of the net.’ I thought that was a very interesting observation.
Points can be lost in the short term when showing a young player a pathway, so developing in an academy has a number of clear benefits, mainly economical and also helping with domestic quotas. But perhaps the biggest advantage is the flexibility of the teen audience. If you look at Arsenal’s most successful academy products, they are often structured in slightly different roles, with the most obvious first team pathways.
Bukayo Saka had his breakthrough at left-back in 2019 after Kieran Tierney was injured. However, he found his calling on the right wing because that was where the space in the team was available. Nicolas Pepe and Willian have proven to be pretty poor signings, meaning the right wing is the most obvious place in the team.
Ashley Cole has spent most of his academy career at left wing, but Arsenal have had Pires and Ljungberg in their first-team squad. They didn’t need a left winger, they needed a left back, so Cole became the left back. Likewise, Jack Wilshere was often seen playing right field, having played 10 times at the academy. He played much closer to the goal than he did as a senior.
But when he reached his peak, Arsenal already had Nasri, Fabregas, Arshavin and Walcott in the team. Going back further, that quality wasn’t reflected by prospects like Denilson and Diaby, who were inconsistent at best. So when Wilshere broke into the first team, he took a step back. Because the first team needed an injection of quality.
I’m sure Arteta had this in mind when he mentioned Nwaneri as a potential number nine. Of course, the observation that Nwaneri shows good performance in front of the goal is accurate. However, the right eight and right wing positions (hopefully) currently held by Odegaard and Saka will belong to those players as long as they are willing to sign contract extensions.
Saka’s injury gave him another opportunity for greater involvement. A more realistic long-term gap for Nwaneri to look into is the left eight role (Arteta appears to prefer a more physical player in this role) or the centre-forward position. The latter represents exceptional market efficiency. Havertz, Merino and Rice can all fill the left eight role well enough, but if you ask Arsenal fans where their favorite quality player in the starting eleven is, they will almost unanimously say the forward line.
I think the huge fees that even the average striker on the market has to pay is the main reason why Arsenal struggle to buy a true, genuine number 9. It would be a very neat long-term solution if they could develop the most talented player from their academy into that position. Obviously Nwaneri can’t do that yet. At this stage it may just be a flash of an idea.
But the striker market won’t get any easier. Arguably Arsenal’s number 9 has been more than a decade since the departure of Robin van Persie. Regardless of what Arsenal can do on the market, a solution that would take a year or two to come to a boil would be incredibly welcome.
A few months ago, I wrote about the decision to develop academy midfielder Myles Lewis Skelly into an inverted left-back. This also seems to be a decision based on pragmatism. Zinchenko, Tierney and Tomiyasu have not aspired to this team, so there is a better path for him as an inverted left-back than as a midfielder for the time being.
Hybrid roles are also very difficult to fulfill, so it also makes a lot of sense for the academy to shape a more flexible lump of clay to suit the needs of the position. If you wanted to buy this type of player on the market, who would you look at? It’s a short list. In a sense, Arsenal have shown a willingness to make way for Nwaneri and Lewis Skelly, but what they also appear to be doing is developing into the gaps in the Arsenal squad.
Nwaneri will not develop and grow in the long term because it is very difficult to find a good striker who is the parent of Odegaard or Saka. It would be unfair to put pressure on Nwaneri to become the world-class striker Arsenal fans have been craving for over a decade, but it would be mutually beneficial to develop him into areas the squad needs more.
In the short term, Arsenal could use Lewis Skelly and Nwaneri to fill the void left by injuries. Lewis Skelly started for Crystal Palace and Arsenal won 5-1. Nwaneri started for Brentford and Arsenal won 3–1. In the long run, I’m sure everyone will value both players much more than fill-in players. But it’s also very useful for them to take on that role at age 17 and 18 respectively.
