Some may have viewed four Arsenal academy players receiving their first start for the senior team, against Bolton Wanderers in the Carabao Cup, as the beginning of their respective journeys.
But for three of them at least, that night was almost a decade in the making. Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly have been at Arsenal since May 2015, while Josh Nichols joined in March 2016.
For academy manager Per Mertesacker, their progression represents a vital stage of the development process.
“Under-9 is almost the most important age group every single year,” he says at the start of one of his 12-hour days at Arsenal’s training centre. “That is where resources go, and also where I need to present to parents and tell them about the one per cent who make it. I am not going to say, ‘You are going to make it, you are going to be the next Bukayo’. We use that as inspiration but there is an element of reality also.
“Under-9 really builds the foundation of your team going forward. I would not call it an under-8 transfer market… (but) it is probably close to that. There are multiple opportunities for talented eight-year-olds, you have to get it right within the system then. Not to promise them too much.”
There can be a wide range of options for promising players in London. Arsenal will be competing with Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, West Ham United, Fulham, Crystal Palace and Queens Park Rangers to get young players through their doors. They are allowed to sign up to 30 players at Under-9 level, but in an attempt to find the right balance within the system, they sign around 20 to give them a set of two groups.
Mertesacker admits, with a self-deprecating joke, that there is a technical level “you can see” at that age that you could not when he was an academy player. He also speaks to the less obvious parts of recruitment at that age, of assessing a young player’s behaviour and getting an understanding of their parents. For Mertesacker, and Arsenal, it is arguably those less tangible traits that stand out more over time.
“Football talent gets you in the building,” he adds. “It’s the person or character that makes it on a consistent basis that sets the ceiling. Respect, humility and discipline are three key traits to be a decent human being first and foremost, but there is also the foundation that you will 100 per cent become a better player if you’ve got those traits.”
Character is a word that has been used when discussing Lewis-Skelly, who has since made cameo appearances against Paris Saint-Germain, Shakhtar Donetsk and Liverpool. First-team manager Mikel Arteta called the 18-year-old a “special” character in his pre-Bolton press conference last month. Des Ryan, formerly Arsenal’s head of sports medicine, described him to The Athletic as a “good, lively” person.
When that is raised in relation to the youngster confronting Erling Haaland after Arsenal’s 2-2 draw at Manchester City, Mertesacker laughs and says: “He wants to be the best team-mate he can be. It is simply coming from those traits — how can he include himself and integrate himself into the first team, how can he protect and be around his team-mates?
“He wasn’t looking at it like, ‘I am facing this guy’. It’s, ‘Gabriel is my team-mate, I want to do anything to protect him’. Not that you necessarily need to do that on your debut. You don’t need to get booked before your debut but it talks about how much of a great team-mate he wants to be. He wants to bring something to the table. He’s not saying, ‘Show me love first and then I will bring something’. He is proactive in his pursuit of being the best team-mate he can be.”
How young individuals deal with big moments in their careers will differ.
While there was anticipation surrounding academy involvement in the Bolton match last month, the most surprising involvement came in goal. With David Raya and Tommy Setford injured, and Neto cup-tied, Arteta turned to 16-year-old Jack Porter, who became the youngest player to start a match in Arsenal’s history. Despite being part of matchday squads beforehand, 24 hours’ notice ahead of a debut can be a lot to handle at that age. So how does Mertesacker go about dealing with these types of moments?
“It goes so quickly from flying high, so how can you then keep your feet on the ground and understand where your journey is?” he says. “It’s probably the aftermath, (seeing) if they’ve understood everything we say to them because we cannot replicate an experience like this.
“All of a sudden, you’re on the pitch at the Emirates and then you’re back playing with the under-18s and you might have a bad game and make a couple of mistakes. We need to understand that’s part of the programme, part of the process. Just because someone plays in the first team doesn’t mean you will never make any mistakes again. Part of their learning is managing the highs and the lows, managing the emotions.”
A night like Arsenal’s against Bolton has felt overdue. Before that match, Arteta had handed out eight first-team debuts to academy graduates during his time in charge, but Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly were the only ones within that group likely to remain in the first-team environment. Of the six that preceded them, Charles Sagoe Jr is the only player still on the club’s books — he is on loan at Sheffield Wednesday.
Last season built particular anticipation around the use of academy players such as Lino Sousa, Reuell Walters and Amario Cozier-Duberry, who have all since left the club. At the time, Arsenal admitted that the raising standards of the first team in recent years made bridging the gap harder, a point Mertesacker reiterates. He also explains: “We had the Covid element, which was a massive difficulty in terms of those years when no one knew what would happen next.
“But there is no excuse. I think we dealt with it quite well over that period but after returning from Covid, we are now in this new stage where we think we’re in a really good position.”
The 40-year-old mentions the talented youngsters who are now getting opportunities as part of this ‘new stage’ but there has also been a slight change in how Arsenal recruit at academy level.
“Once Brexit was there, it restricted movement of European talent coming here to London Colney,” he adds. “Arsenal had been really successful in getting that mixture. That was really important but it’s closed now, so domestic recruitment is more important and London recruitment is more important.”
Although he is slightly older than the ages Mertesacker is referring to here, Brayden Clarke serves as an example of more national recruitment Arsenal have undertaken this year. The Birmingham-born defender joined at 16 in March after leaving Wolverhampton Wanderers and signed a professional contract on his 17th birthday in July. He has played for the under-18s, under-19s and under-21s this season, captaining the under-18s in their most recent fixture at Norwich City.
Those age groups are where important steps can be made ahead of final leaps into a first-team environment.
Nwaneri, for example, was used in four different attacking/creative positions in these age groups. The under-21s is also where midfielder Lewis-Skelly was given his first real tests as a left-back, in the 2022-23 season. There are many more examples, with Nichols playing as a full-back on both sides, Michal Rosiak operating at right-back and holding midfield, and Ayden Heaven dropping into defence after spending some of his youth in midfield.
“Flexibility is huge and every debut is going to be different. I was a centre-back my whole life and my debut was at right-back,” Mertesacker says, on what is in fact officially logged as his only appearance at right-back — in Hannover’s 2-1 win over Cologne in November 2003.
“Ethan is an attacking midfielder who can play multiple positions but sometimes to develop his running in behind and defending as a winger (he may play elsewhere), but now you can see his position in those pocket areas. It’s not a straightforward decision all the time, so flexibility is huge for us. Myles has always been a midfielder but the first team ask him to roll in from the full-back position.
“It’s credit to the boys and how they take on those challenges and they feel like, ‘I’ve got an opportunity, I want to grasp it’. There’s a framework on positions you adhere to, but it’s just finding your best position, how you develop at the top end and what is required. To link youth, academy and senior football is sometimes very difficult. If you’re successful in one, you might not be in the other.
“It doesn’t take away that Myles could be an inverted full-back, a No 6 or a No 8 because he still carries those three positions within himself. They are developed 360, but within their frameworks of being a full-back or midfielder. In Ethan’s case you see where he will develop and actually transfer his game into those pocket areas, like Martin Odegaard.”
All these considerations alongside a young player’s talent is what can go into what supporters see in glimpses on the pitch. With another favourable Carabao Cup draw seeing Arsenal travel to Preston North End, Wednesday is another good opportunity to test them further at what is still an early stage in their hopefully long careers.
(Top photo: Christian Charisius/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
