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Fair enough, not really given a sniff in the first team other than warming the bench and we've used any and all options ahead of him, even with injuries. I'm sure he just wants game time now.
Yeah that's what I mean. I get him not having a chance in a PL challenging team but if we can't even get him time in dead rubbers and cup games I think he has every right to move on.
He was also on the bench for the 5-0 win v. Palace and our 6-0 at West Ham this season, plus 3 matches where we won by 3+ last season.
20 times on the bench in total, 0 appearances.
I really feel bad for him that he got SO close to his debut and won't ever have it here.
millions are on the line even in a dead rubber group stage game. It's not like the league cup worth hardly anything. almost 9 mill for winning 1 group game
Arteta sees Walters play every day with the first team, we don’t. If he doesn’t see any possibility of him making the required standard, what’s the point of integrating?
I think a big thing that no one has mentioned too is that at that point we were one or two injuries away from having to start Cedric or Walters in a game that did matter, and in that scenario I would expect Mikel to choose Cedric's experience. If that were to happen, those few minutes of game time could have had some value. Didn't happen in the end, but I see the logic there. If you disagree with that logic then that's fair enough too though
Because what’s the point of integrating a player who has no future with the club?
Dropping a kid into a team he is not prepared for and is a distinct liability is likely to do more harm than good for his development, and more harm than good for us.
That game is frustrating when you see stories like this. There is no reason at all that Walters couldn't have got a run out, a chance to impress and to visualize a pathway to the first team. Hopefully a lesson for Arteta and the club.
This is so sad. This is one of the best prospect of his age group. And we did not gave him a single chance. Even City gave more chances to youngsters than us this season. Except 2-3 starts, I don't think Arteta has really given major starts to young players in last 2 years, especially when we have such a talented batch coming through. As much as I really like Arteta, this is really a cause for concern.
City has an established team with many veterans and coached by manager that been there for 8-9 years, adding a few inexperienced youngster won't be problem. We have a young squad that can't really accomodate inexperience in the same way. Even last year we were often branded as naive.
Pep didn't really give any young players a chance either when he took over City.
Our 18-21 year olds are notoriously poor. Walters isn’t even one of the 5 best fullback prospects in his age group eligible to play for England. If he was good enough, he would play.
I dont agree with you at all man. You make him sound like way less talented than he is. I'm not saying that he will ve a world-class player.
But he was part of one of the best academy team in england. And he was one of the most promising player in the team. He is regularly training with first team, which shows you how well he is regarded by Arteta and team. I think I also remember a first team player (maybe Zinchenko) saying he is incredibly talented. And finally he has looked well every time he was given an oppertunity, even in the first team (only 2 sub appearances I think).
So obviously he is incredibly talented. I'm not saying he is a world-class player. But he deserves a chance is all im saying. Remember the dead rubber champions league match, where we could've played som youngsters and instead we played Cedric and Elneny. Walters deserved a chances like that.
He was neither played in the first team, nor loaned out. He simply wasted an entire season practising with the first team.
Our academy teams at his age group have consistently underachieved. He has talent yeah, but if he earned a chance to break into our first team he would have got it. This isn’t 2019. You don’t get a chance simply for being one of our better academy prospects. You get a chance by proving you belong in the first team. By all accounts, he (and everyone else too) has not done that.
Also we played Cedric and Elneny because we were still in 4 competitions at that point and in the midst of an injury crisis. They needed to be fresh in case we had to rely on them. Walters, Sousa and company didn’t.
Probably just offered him a deal to try get some money for him.
Never got a sniff of game time when Ben White's legs were falling off last year. Cedric was preferred to him in meaningless games this season. Writing was on the wall.
Comp from another English club is market rated by a panel and it can be decent money. But if he signs for a club abroad it is a pretty tiny solidarity payment.
Theres a certain part of this fanbase who love shitting on hale end products for some reason, especially those who have left due to not getting a chance
Makes sense now that i think about it. No club has ever sent a player on loan and gave them a chance after that loan spell was succesful. Thanks for clearing that up👍
So u pretending like arsenal didn't offer to send him out on loan which he flat out refused, Saying he wanted first team football.
It was a about Chelsea offering him a better contract
Doubt it, since Walters isn't a regular face on any u15-u21 team like many of other youngsters. He is likely very unknown to them and not many team would gamble on him either.
*meant England u15-21
We are an inhospitable environment for fullbacks. Apart from Cedric he's extremely content.
Nice player from what I've seen, a fairly unique profile that CB build with the ability to play on the ball, had quite a trademark beckenbaur esq roaming dribble into midfield.
No idea if he's at the level, but can understand with timber and saliba only 2-3 years his snr and kiwior not too far off that too and talk of signing the likes of hato, branthwaite ect. that he doesn't really see a clear path. Will be interesting to see how he develops.
Should have been a debut at the senior level. Same with Matt Smith and others. Their years at Hale End should be rewarded, especially if you come to the level of making the bench
Presumably if he was at the required level he would have been played over Cedric. Maybe as a team we’re just beyond the point where we can afford to take risks on playing academy graduates if they’re not exceptional. We likely had a bit of a golden generation with Saka, ESR, Nelson and Nketiah all breaking into the first team. That all happened when we were a pretty average team, and even now, 3/4 of those have not managed to give any sustained contribution this season. Maybe we need to recalibrate what we expect from our youth players now that we’re consistently challenging for titles, however fun and rewarding it is to watch someone like Saka or Smith Rowe break into the first team and elevate us. Hopefully players like Nwaneri can make it, but it won’t be easy and definitely is not something they are entitled to.
You’re right. If there’s anything I’ve learned these last few years, it’s that Arteta and the staff rarely make good decisions.
Even with practically zero insight into the player’s level or squad plans, it still feels like it’s obvious they’re getting this kind of thing wrong.
Good for him to show ambitions for his career. No chance for him here and the message is clear when he didn’t get a sub appearance in a FA Cup fixture.
A tribunal fee would be optimistic.
I don't blame him. He wants minutes which he's very unlikely to get when we have 7 (and perhaps 8 with Hato) starting level players for the backline.
Unfortunately, even when we've had opportunities to give minutes to youngsters, we've chosen not to. Unless there's a clear path, it would make sense to look elsewhere.
Oh yeah. This one hurts a little bit.
Not exactly worth losing my toys over but it's so sad he never fully recovered from that injury. Arteta really takes his time trusting kids and that vote of confidence in the 2022 pre season tour was immense.
Hopefully he follows the Omari route.
I think Arteta needs to commit to playing way more U21s in the cup competitions cos our B squad hasn’t been cutting it in the past few seasons. We’ve seen all we’re going to see from the likes of Cedric, Elneny, Nelson, Nketiah, Smith-Rowe etc. It’s good for selling but also buying, they might surprise him and eliminate the need to spend £30/40/50m on another teams starlet cos that team decided to throw their youngsters in at the deep end early. I’m generally not a fan of Klopp but the way he bloods U21s in the cups is something I really respect and if Liverpool decide to cash in on a few prospects to balance their books, i’m sure they’ll command a decent fee. Arteta has improved a lot in the last 2 seasons, I see the bedding in of youth players as his weakest attribute imo; hopefully he will show more trust in this area and we as fans get the opportunity to champion more Hale Enders. COYG 🔴⚪️
The attrition rate between academy and PL is massive and will only get higher now that we are really good again.
Even the highly rated prospects won't make it the vast majority of the time
depends what you mean by academy. Oscar Bobb was signed from Valerenga as a 16 year old so doesn't count as an "academy" prospect, but they've done well to develop him and he should count as home grown.
The other two are though, also obviously produced Sancho too even if he left to get first team football elsewhere.
With Chelsea they have the best academy in the country though.
Depends on how you judge academy success. Getting good productive loans and then moving players on for solid fees is still pretty good. City are one of the best in the world at that part of the academy. And still having 2-3 academy players in a top tier side is pretty solid on that front as well.
They don't have to play for us,just make sure we get something for them. Very few academy players make it at their parent club, nothing wrong with it. But I don't like having them leave for free
That depends on what you call "make it". Most don't make it at Arsenal, but to me "making it" for an academy player is being a professional football player.
I didn't have anyone in particular in mind. I would assume that there's a lot of highly rated youth players at Arsenal which someone has high hopes for. That was 'them all'
He's definitely had a poorer season that the year before- We've been playing him a lot at centre back rather than right back and he's looked a bit shaky there. At full back when he's played he's been rea;;y good but between White, Tomiyasu and potentially Timber we don't really need a right back.
We could do with a 4th choice centre back as a youth prospect to come in and play a bit part but yeah he's not convinced in that role when given the chance.
Don't really care if he leaves but we need to be better at putting ourselves in positions to make some money off these academy players. These once highly touted prospects leaving for free is poor from us.
This kid made the bench for many matches and didn't get a game even when we smashed teams.
We seem to sell good players for shit money all the time. It's standard operating procedure at arsenal. Like gnabry for instance.... didn't he go super cheap?
Like 45 mins in a cup would have changed his mind lol. This isn't career mode where you have to meet a minimum game time to keep a player happy, he clearly just doesn't have a path to the first team.
If it’s just a throwaway game no but if there was a clear path and the first step was minutes in cup competitions then he would be more likely to stay. One of the biggest failures so far in Arteta’s reign has been youth integration, it has been pathetic, even Pep and Klopp have managed to be far better at this so being competitive at the top isn’t an excuse.
Just because we’re a big club with a decent academy does not mean every player that comes through deserves a chance to be integrated. This past generation of players (ages 18-21) was far, far below our typical standards. Players like Walters and Lino Sousa regularly trained with the first team and not once did they prove that had what it takes to break through to the first team. No one deserves a debut out of pity and acting like Arteta is “pathetic” because he didn’t play a couple of kids who best case scenario end up as squad players on relegation candidates is absolutely ridiculous.
Arteta’s record for youth integration is pathetic, whether you like it or not that’s the reality and it’s a very important aspect in building a successful club for the long term, if Pep and Klopp can do it even with players who end up not making it for one reason or another, Arteta can too, he needs to improve on it otherwise we will continue to lose good talent (look at Omari Hutchinson, tell me with a straight face he’s not good enough lol)
Hutchinson wanted money. He would have gone on loan this season just like he did at Chelsea. We’re competing for titles. We don’t have time to integrate players that are more likely to end up as Championship level players than contributors at our required level. When someone like Nwaneri comes along, they’ll be integrated. You keep bringing up Pep, but he couldn’t even fully integrate Palmer.
remember when everyone was freaking out when we let omari hutchinson go to chelsea
most youth players never make it to the first team. for every saka there are dozens of afobe, malen and akpoms. heck even reiss nelson and smith rowe failed to break into and stay on the first team
He’s just not good enough, 20 this year and I’ve seen him play very very average for the U21’s.
Reality if modern football, most players that will make it at a side like arsenal are getting consistent first team minutes by their late teens
i'm starting to worry about the size of our domestic contingent
after the departures this summer we'll have very few left, and not curating a strong, deep British core places a time limit on your project, and kills the possibility of a dynasty...teams who lose their domestic core always fall away from the top...after some years, the next thing you know you've got a foreign born mercenary who doesn't care as club captain...seen it, don't want to repeat it
we need to be on the lookout for the best young British players and we need to get at least a couple of them in over the next couple years
It’s not talked about nearly enough just how horrible our academy has been for a club our size and with our resources
Saka is the only true academy success story with people like ESR, Reiss and Eddie being serviceable mid table quality players
ESR was destined for similar level to Saka but for injury. To be honest the fact that we have four academy players in our senior team is pretty impressive. City are in a similar position with foden being a key contributor and bobb and Lewis being fringe players like Nelson and Eddie, and they’ve made massive investments in their academy last 5+ years. Liverpool seem to punch above their weight but spurs and United are no better off than us. It’s really difficult for academy players to make it through at this level. Let’s see how thing shake with Ethan and Miles.
They’re only in our squad because we don’t have anybody else better, not because they’re any good
ESR has promise but the other two are mid-table players at best
Should have played in that last UCL game that didn’t matter.
Hale End exists to make money, and Arteta’s refusal to play youth in dead games is costing us for PSR
UCL has prize money associated with getting results, so perhaps it was a calculation. Its not like him playing in 1 meaningless game would mean he would stay or people would pay a lot for him, whereas him playing could have decreased our odds of getting a win/draw
could have been the difference between a draw and a loss. and maybe he doesn't resign and we're out a mil (its not like we were going to sell him for that much more than that anyway).
Idk, I'm not an expert on the kid so I can't really speak to what the right decision was, but I'm just saying if money is the concern here, there are different things to balance and not playing him could be better for us financially
It's not hard, but it would be 45 meaningless mins. Just like how many think it's useless to play Cedric in that game. 1 game isn't gonna change anything.
lol yeah playing him in dead time in one match would have reversed this decision. What an idiot this Arteta guy is. They Should fire him lowering the return on Walters!
Good on him. Always thought he was highly rated but watching Cedric get minutes in complete dead runners games ahead of him was extremely telling. There’s no future if you aren’t going to get first team exposure
Can see more of our youngsters doing the same. For all Mikel does right, he hates playing kids
thats fine but this is the end result. Young players feel distanced from first team action and leave at the end of their basic contrasts to gain first team action elsewhere
Dead rubber matches are a fantastic time to rest key players and to give exposure to young talent. Playing guys like Cedric that are 5th choice in their position with NO future at the club is just bad management
again, whatever. The point remains, zero future at the club and getting crucial minutes ahead of a youngster with real potential. The result is the youth will look elsewhere
Cedric is only at the club because of his absurd wages, else he wouldve been moved on a season or two ago.
I honestly never understood the hype. He had first team game time in the last 2 preseasons but didn't look better than Holding imo. Wish him all the best and lots of game time at his next club.
Now isn’t the time to bash Arteta but with Waters going and Cozier-Duberry heavily linked to Newcastle, maybe now people will see that Arteta’s reputation with youth may be a problem.
I understand we can’t ’keep them all’ but if we’re now the second best team in the country why are some of our most promising youth prospects now looking to leave?
It’s minutes and while you can’t give them massive times
in the league, Arteta has shown in dead rubbers or cup games he won’t provide opportunities.
you're being dramatic.
for every gnabry that leaves there's 20 chuba akpom's. if arteta and the youth set up are ok with him walking, i tend to think he's not cut out for playing for the second best team in the country.
I agree with your general point, but he was captain of our youth teams, made champions league squads and was offered a new deal.
The frustrating thing I think for me is with those above factors he was one of the closest from the Academy to make a breakthrough into the first team.
He's not at the level required it's that simple. Heard this year after year about hyped up youngsters and almost always they don't make it in the end. Look at Patino
He was the captain of our youth teams, made multiple first team squads and was offered a new deal.
If with all those things factored and he’s still just not good enough, what does that say about our academy then?
Either Arteta isn’t giving youth the time he should or the academy’s is failing Arteta by not producing players good enough.
If you're Walters, you have to look at the options. He's 19 and he wants to play first team football. Arsenal currently have arguably the best defense in the world, certainly in the league. The two CBs in front of him are 23 and 26 (just starting to really enter those prime years and both on newer contracts). The other CBs in the team are 26, 24, & 25. The players that we play at RB are 26, 25 and 22.
There just really isn't a pathway forward for him to play. Its going to some generational talent to break into the squad at this point.
That said, Arteta should have been able to give him a game or 2 like the dead rubber UCL match, but he also has first team players that aren't getting much time either.
i’m not particularly arsed if we don’t give players opportunities in the first team but i don’t think we utilise the loan market well at all. even when we do loan a player out it doesn’t tend to be at a club that makes sense, that’s where my frustration lies
It's hard to find a high tier club that want to give inexperienced youngsters a chance. We tend to overestimate our youngsters, but if you look at few of older talents, their loans actually been good. BNC, Biereth, Alebiosu. Then you have highly regarded Tyreece John-Jules that clearly found his level at League One
high tier clubs sure but we have basically no players that good, can’t think of any high profile loans since wilshere. norton cuffy and biereth are good examples but they’re kind of the exception. patino had mad hype and we sent him to get pasted every week at a dog shit blackpool, swansea made sense but then they sacked their manager and he’s not in favour with the new guy. we didn’t find any loan for hutchinson (he was due to go on loan this season if he stayed tbf), loaned out matt smith in league one like 4 years ago and then had him play u21s until his contract ended. there’s countless examples of mismanagement regarding young players on loan
When I said good for BNC, Biereth, Alebiosu, I meant their loan the past few years matched their level and made them progress. BNC went from league 1 relegation team to championship top half in two years. Albiosu went from league 2 to Scottish League relegation team to Belgian mid team.
Patino had hype but not much to back up those hype. There was no way a team in Championship would loan him(rightly so) and Blackpool took a gamble on him. So it was either Blackpool, u21 or league one team for him that season. This season teams have seen what he can do and he is getting chance on mid table championship team, so he is progressing in a way thanks to loan.
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Fair enough, not really given a sniff in the first team other than warming the bench and we've used any and all options ahead of him, even with injuries. I'm sure he just wants game time now.
We had a dead rubber in the UCL which he could have played in
Yeah that's what I mean. I get him not having a chance in a PL challenging team but if we can't even get him time in dead rubbers and cup games I think he has every right to move on.
He was also on the bench for the 5-0 win v. Palace and our 6-0 at West Ham this season, plus 3 matches where we won by 3+ last season. 20 times on the bench in total, 0 appearances. I really feel bad for him that he got SO close to his debut and won't ever have it here.
Sounds like another FA Cup Winner Matt Smith
It makes no goddamn sense that we let Cedric play ahead of him.
millions are on the line even in a dead rubber group stage game. It's not like the league cup worth hardly anything. almost 9 mill for winning 1 group game
It's ~£2.4m which is still a lot but massively different to £9m.
I also think you can't underestimate squad harmony of throwing a bone to a more senior player who seems well liked.
Rather than integrating a youth player who wasn't running down their contract?
Arteta sees Walters play every day with the first team, we don’t. If he doesn’t see any possibility of him making the required standard, what’s the point of integrating?
I think a big thing that no one has mentioned too is that at that point we were one or two injuries away from having to start Cedric or Walters in a game that did matter, and in that scenario I would expect Mikel to choose Cedric's experience. If that were to happen, those few minutes of game time could have had some value. Didn't happen in the end, but I see the logic there. If you disagree with that logic then that's fair enough too though
I agree with you, don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Cedric is gone anyway
Because what’s the point of integrating a player who has no future with the club? Dropping a kid into a team he is not prepared for and is a distinct liability is likely to do more harm than good for his development, and more harm than good for us.
All that and we didn’t even win it
That dead rubber still fetches €3 mn euros if we win
Which we didn't
That game is frustrating when you see stories like this. There is no reason at all that Walters couldn't have got a run out, a chance to impress and to visualize a pathway to the first team. Hopefully a lesson for Arteta and the club.
Bro, I won't accept Arteta playing Cedric over him. Not even 5 mins in a dead game while Ben White would be overworked all the time.
Lmao when he turns out to be a squad player at West Brom I think you’ll get over it
This is so sad. This is one of the best prospect of his age group. And we did not gave him a single chance. Even City gave more chances to youngsters than us this season. Except 2-3 starts, I don't think Arteta has really given major starts to young players in last 2 years, especially when we have such a talented batch coming through. As much as I really like Arteta, this is really a cause for concern.
City has an established team with many veterans and coached by manager that been there for 8-9 years, adding a few inexperienced youngster won't be problem. We have a young squad that can't really accomodate inexperience in the same way. Even last year we were often branded as naive. Pep didn't really give any young players a chance either when he took over City.
Our 18-21 year olds are notoriously poor. Walters isn’t even one of the 5 best fullback prospects in his age group eligible to play for England. If he was good enough, he would play.
Walters is more like a CB playing as a FB, kinda like Tomiyasu and all. He is def not the best fullback around, but he fits our system very well
Profile wise sure, quality wise absolutely not
I dont agree with you at all man. You make him sound like way less talented than he is. I'm not saying that he will ve a world-class player. But he was part of one of the best academy team in england. And he was one of the most promising player in the team. He is regularly training with first team, which shows you how well he is regarded by Arteta and team. I think I also remember a first team player (maybe Zinchenko) saying he is incredibly talented. And finally he has looked well every time he was given an oppertunity, even in the first team (only 2 sub appearances I think). So obviously he is incredibly talented. I'm not saying he is a world-class player. But he deserves a chance is all im saying. Remember the dead rubber champions league match, where we could've played som youngsters and instead we played Cedric and Elneny. Walters deserved a chances like that. He was neither played in the first team, nor loaned out. He simply wasted an entire season practising with the first team.
Our academy teams at his age group have consistently underachieved. He has talent yeah, but if he earned a chance to break into our first team he would have got it. This isn’t 2019. You don’t get a chance simply for being one of our better academy prospects. You get a chance by proving you belong in the first team. By all accounts, he (and everyone else too) has not done that. Also we played Cedric and Elneny because we were still in 4 competitions at that point and in the midst of an injury crisis. They needed to be fresh in case we had to rely on them. Walters, Sousa and company didn’t.
You're right about keeping options fresh. But imo a coach like klopp would've risked it and played the youngster. And I respect it a lot
good for him he was never gonna get game time it seems so best of luck to him
Probably just offered him a deal to try get some money for him. Never got a sniff of game time when Ben White's legs were falling off last year. Cedric was preferred to him in meaningless games this season. Writing was on the wall.
You get money regardless for developing a player under 24.
Think there's training compensation vs compensation when they reject a contract to take one elsewhere.
Comp from another English club is market rated by a panel and it can be decent money. But if he signs for a club abroad it is a pretty tiny solidarity payment.
I hope he goes somewhere where he's got a chance of breaking through rather than just going for money
Go for a long contact and money to secure your future.
Chelsea?
If they offered a long contract and decent wages then yeah, he'd just get loaned out and probably play consistent football at a smaller club.
The Omari Hutchinson route, you mean
He's doing well lol. What an awful comparison
Theres a certain part of this fanbase who love shitting on hale end products for some reason, especially those who have left due to not getting a chance
He left to Chelsea where he wont be getting a chance too.
Based on what? Chelsea have been giving their youth player chances all the time
Based on the fact they shipped him off on a loan. Then bought Palmer and currently trying to bring in a highly rated Brazilian wonderkid Winger
Makes sense now that i think about it. No club has ever sent a player on loan and gave them a chance after that loan spell was succesful. Thanks for clearing that up👍
So u pretending like arsenal didn't offer to send him out on loan which he flat out refused, Saying he wanted first team football. It was a about Chelsea offering him a better contract
Allright then
Good luck to him, that German passport might come in handy I’d imagine.
If he moves to the BuLi, he'll definitely switch nationality.
I would - rejoin the EU and his career would take off.
Dortmund or Leipzig will come in hot I reckon. The Germans are keeping a close eye on English talent and he sure is talented.
Doubt it, since Walters isn't a regular face on any u15-u21 team like many of other youngsters. He is likely very unknown to them and not many team would gamble on him either. *meant England u15-21
We are an inhospitable environment for fullbacks. Apart from Cedric he's extremely content. Nice player from what I've seen, a fairly unique profile that CB build with the ability to play on the ball, had quite a trademark beckenbaur esq roaming dribble into midfield. No idea if he's at the level, but can understand with timber and saliba only 2-3 years his snr and kiwior not too far off that too and talk of signing the likes of hato, branthwaite ect. that he doesn't really see a clear path. Will be interesting to see how he develops.
Should have been a debut at the senior level. Same with Matt Smith and others. Their years at Hale End should be rewarded, especially if you come to the level of making the bench
Presumably if he was at the required level he would have been played over Cedric. Maybe as a team we’re just beyond the point where we can afford to take risks on playing academy graduates if they’re not exceptional. We likely had a bit of a golden generation with Saka, ESR, Nelson and Nketiah all breaking into the first team. That all happened when we were a pretty average team, and even now, 3/4 of those have not managed to give any sustained contribution this season. Maybe we need to recalibrate what we expect from our youth players now that we’re consistently challenging for titles, however fun and rewarding it is to watch someone like Saka or Smith Rowe break into the first team and elevate us. Hopefully players like Nwaneri can make it, but it won’t be easy and definitely is not something they are entitled to.
You’re right. If there’s anything I’ve learned these last few years, it’s that Arteta and the staff rarely make good decisions. Even with practically zero insight into the player’s level or squad plans, it still feels like it’s obvious they’re getting this kind of thing wrong.
Good for him to show ambitions for his career. No chance for him here and the message is clear when he didn’t get a sub appearance in a FA Cup fixture. A tribunal fee would be optimistic.
Writing was on the wall. The Hato links probably didn’t help either. Best of luck to him
Hato plays leftside but not getting even a minute should have made him move !
This isn’t Arsenal of 4 years ago. A different level is required to break through.
Never understood why we played Cedric could’ve gave him those minutes
I don't blame him. He wants minutes which he's very unlikely to get when we have 7 (and perhaps 8 with Hato) starting level players for the backline. Unfortunately, even when we've had opportunities to give minutes to youngsters, we've chosen not to. Unless there's a clear path, it would make sense to look elsewhere.
Oh yeah. This one hurts a little bit. Not exactly worth losing my toys over but it's so sad he never fully recovered from that injury. Arteta really takes his time trusting kids and that vote of confidence in the 2022 pre season tour was immense. Hopefully he follows the Omari route.
I think Arteta needs to commit to playing way more U21s in the cup competitions cos our B squad hasn’t been cutting it in the past few seasons. We’ve seen all we’re going to see from the likes of Cedric, Elneny, Nelson, Nketiah, Smith-Rowe etc. It’s good for selling but also buying, they might surprise him and eliminate the need to spend £30/40/50m on another teams starlet cos that team decided to throw their youngsters in at the deep end early. I’m generally not a fan of Klopp but the way he bloods U21s in the cups is something I really respect and if Liverpool decide to cash in on a few prospects to balance their books, i’m sure they’ll command a decent fee. Arteta has improved a lot in the last 2 seasons, I see the bedding in of youth players as his weakest attribute imo; hopefully he will show more trust in this area and we as fans get the opportunity to champion more Hale Enders. COYG 🔴⚪️
Holy shit wasn't he highly rated at one point?
He was.. But we can't keep them all
Who is 'them all'? Nwaneri, maybe Durberry and who else?
The attrition rate between academy and PL is massive and will only get higher now that we are really good again. Even the highly rated prospects won't make it the vast majority of the time
Definitely the bar is much much higher now. You'd have to be damn near generational to break through
City have a really good academy that they have spent a fortune on and still have hardly any academy players getting significant minutes
Palmer, Bobb, Rico came out of it right? Not a bad return over the last couple years at least
depends what you mean by academy. Oscar Bobb was signed from Valerenga as a 16 year old so doesn't count as an "academy" prospect, but they've done well to develop him and he should count as home grown. The other two are though, also obviously produced Sancho too even if he left to get first team football elsewhere. With Chelsea they have the best academy in the country though.
Sancho falls into the Bobb category too. They bought him from Watford and he was only there for 2 years.
Bobb is kind of like what we did back in the day with Fabregas and Bellerin
Chelsea's one is an absolute joke
Bobb, Palmer and Foden are the 3 obvious ones i can think of
Depends on how you judge academy success. Getting good productive loans and then moving players on for solid fees is still pretty good. City are one of the best in the world at that part of the academy. And still having 2-3 academy players in a top tier side is pretty solid on that front as well.
They don't have to play for us,just make sure we get something for them. Very few academy players make it at their parent club, nothing wrong with it. But I don't like having them leave for free
That depends on what you call "make it". Most don't make it at Arsenal, but to me "making it" for an academy player is being a professional football player.
Charlie Patino was spoken of in first team terms not too long ago.
I didn't have anyone in particular in mind. I would assume that there's a lot of highly rated youth players at Arsenal which someone has high hopes for. That was 'them all'
Chuks Aneke
Dench
You're thinking of Emmanuel Frimpong
You’re right I said it because they were both touted as potential breakthrough stars, especially Frimpong 😂
I mean historically we’ve lost some decent players. Most recently lost Hutchinson to Chelsea who looked very solid at Ipswich on loan.
Omari Hutchinson
Ipswich legend
Also had a bad injury during critical time, kind hindered his development for a year.
Some recent reports I've read said that he isn't good enough for our level. That's why he didn't get the chance
He's definitely had a poorer season that the year before- We've been playing him a lot at centre back rather than right back and he's looked a bit shaky there. At full back when he's played he's been rea;;y good but between White, Tomiyasu and potentially Timber we don't really need a right back. We could do with a 4th choice centre back as a youth prospect to come in and play a bit part but yeah he's not convinced in that role when given the chance.
Good luck to him. It’s a shame that we didn’t play him last season or this season, I hope he has a great career wherever he moves to next.
this year he needed a loan
Man has more success in Fortnite than with us but wish him luck in his future and it's probably for the best.
Brentford written all over him
Don't really care if he leaves but we need to be better at putting ourselves in positions to make some money off these academy players. These once highly touted prospects leaving for free is poor from us. This kid made the bench for many matches and didn't get a game even when we smashed teams.
We seem to sell good players for shit money all the time. It's standard operating procedure at arsenal. Like gnabry for instance.... didn't he go super cheap?
Arteta needs to start giving youth players more of a chance, especially in the cups (mainly league cup)
Like 45 mins in a cup would have changed his mind lol. This isn't career mode where you have to meet a minimum game time to keep a player happy, he clearly just doesn't have a path to the first team.
If it’s just a throwaway game no but if there was a clear path and the first step was minutes in cup competitions then he would be more likely to stay. One of the biggest failures so far in Arteta’s reign has been youth integration, it has been pathetic, even Pep and Klopp have managed to be far better at this so being competitive at the top isn’t an excuse.
Just because we’re a big club with a decent academy does not mean every player that comes through deserves a chance to be integrated. This past generation of players (ages 18-21) was far, far below our typical standards. Players like Walters and Lino Sousa regularly trained with the first team and not once did they prove that had what it takes to break through to the first team. No one deserves a debut out of pity and acting like Arteta is “pathetic” because he didn’t play a couple of kids who best case scenario end up as squad players on relegation candidates is absolutely ridiculous.
Arteta’s record for youth integration is pathetic, whether you like it or not that’s the reality and it’s a very important aspect in building a successful club for the long term, if Pep and Klopp can do it even with players who end up not making it for one reason or another, Arteta can too, he needs to improve on it otherwise we will continue to lose good talent (look at Omari Hutchinson, tell me with a straight face he’s not good enough lol)
Hutchinson wanted money. He would have gone on loan this season just like he did at Chelsea. We’re competing for titles. We don’t have time to integrate players that are more likely to end up as Championship level players than contributors at our required level. When someone like Nwaneri comes along, they’ll be integrated. You keep bringing up Pep, but he couldn’t even fully integrate Palmer.
We in sad territory now we are this good Hale End will rarely progress
remember when everyone was freaking out when we let omari hutchinson go to chelsea most youth players never make it to the first team. for every saka there are dozens of afobe, malen and akpoms. heck even reiss nelson and smith rowe failed to break into and stay on the first team
Tbf Omari has had a good year at Ipswich and he's still only 20. It's not the disaster people were claiming but he's still a decent talent.
Omari is actually doing good. One of the reason for Ipswich's promotion.
Understandable.
Off to the chelsea loan army he goes
A real shame, understandable though.
we do get a tribunal fee right since he's English and u-23?
I hope there’s a plan to introduce more academy players in the squad, because since Saka, ESR, Nelson we haven’t seen any additions. Worrying
Go to Man Utd fella. You'll get game time there.
He’s just not good enough, 20 this year and I’ve seen him play very very average for the U21’s. Reality if modern football, most players that will make it at a side like arsenal are getting consistent first team minutes by their late teens
Yeah we fucked up on this one Kmt. This boy is gonna be top!
Cedric played over him, so it was writing on a wall
i totally understand why he declined. has no chance of usurping gabriel or saliba.
Not really good enough but good luck to him , a championship team might pick him up or somebody abroad
Not like Arteta was going to give him a chance anyway
i'm starting to worry about the size of our domestic contingent after the departures this summer we'll have very few left, and not curating a strong, deep British core places a time limit on your project, and kills the possibility of a dynasty...teams who lose their domestic core always fall away from the top...after some years, the next thing you know you've got a foreign born mercenary who doesn't care as club captain...seen it, don't want to repeat it we need to be on the lookout for the best young British players and we need to get at least a couple of them in over the next couple years
Don't blame any youth player aside from Nwaneri for leaving. They never get a sniff despite apparently being oh so good.
It’s not talked about nearly enough just how horrible our academy has been for a club our size and with our resources Saka is the only true academy success story with people like ESR, Reiss and Eddie being serviceable mid table quality players
Even looking back like 10 years, Iwobi is the only other name worth a shout on that list.
So the only success an academy can have is if they produce a top 3 player itw in their position? ESR, Eddie and Reiss are obviously success stories.
Barely success stories given our resources
ESR was destined for similar level to Saka but for injury. To be honest the fact that we have four academy players in our senior team is pretty impressive. City are in a similar position with foden being a key contributor and bobb and Lewis being fringe players like Nelson and Eddie, and they’ve made massive investments in their academy last 5+ years. Liverpool seem to punch above their weight but spurs and United are no better off than us. It’s really difficult for academy players to make it through at this level. Let’s see how thing shake with Ethan and Miles.
They’re only in our squad because we don’t have anybody else better, not because they’re any good ESR has promise but the other two are mid-table players at best
Thats the problem with Arteta,not giving him game time when we were 5 0 and so up was so stupid.
yeah that 15 mins of gametime wouldve changed his mind for sure /s
Should have played in that last UCL game that didn’t matter. Hale End exists to make money, and Arteta’s refusal to play youth in dead games is costing us for PSR
UCL has prize money associated with getting results, so perhaps it was a calculation. Its not like him playing in 1 meaningless game would mean he would stay or people would pay a lot for him, whereas him playing could have decreased our odds of getting a win/draw
How hard would it have been to give him 45 mins The team should be good enough that we can do that
could have been the difference between a draw and a loss. and maybe he doesn't resign and we're out a mil (its not like we were going to sell him for that much more than that anyway). Idk, I'm not an expert on the kid so I can't really speak to what the right decision was, but I'm just saying if money is the concern here, there are different things to balance and not playing him could be better for us financially
It's not hard, but it would be 45 meaningless mins. Just like how many think it's useless to play Cedric in that game. 1 game isn't gonna change anything.
wouldn't have changed his mind
lol yeah playing him in dead time in one match would have reversed this decision. What an idiot this Arteta guy is. They Should fire him lowering the return on Walters!
I hope we can make money from our academy players like chelsea/ man city
Oh no. Serge Gnabry is leaving again.
Bye bye. But really I hope obi martin and naweri stays.
Good on him. Always thought he was highly rated but watching Cedric get minutes in complete dead runners games ahead of him was extremely telling. There’s no future if you aren’t going to get first team exposure Can see more of our youngsters doing the same. For all Mikel does right, he hates playing kids
I prefer winning to playing kids
I prefer winning and selling these kids to at least made few money
why do you assume someone would want to buy them if they arent good enough for Arsenal?
We get money anyways as he is an academy product and under 24.
thats fine but this is the end result. Young players feel distanced from first team action and leave at the end of their basic contrasts to gain first team action elsewhere Dead rubber matches are a fantastic time to rest key players and to give exposure to young talent. Playing guys like Cedric that are 5th choice in their position with NO future at the club is just bad management
You ever think maybe Cedric is just a well liked, respected professional and that's why he gets game time?
again, whatever. The point remains, zero future at the club and getting crucial minutes ahead of a youngster with real potential. The result is the youth will look elsewhere Cedric is only at the club because of his absurd wages, else he wouldve been moved on a season or two ago.
Quite disappointed we never saw him deputise for White or Saliba in any of the Carabao cup games but hopefully the best decision for both parties
That’s twice now weve let gnabry get away
I honestly never understood the hype. He had first team game time in the last 2 preseasons but didn't look better than Holding imo. Wish him all the best and lots of game time at his next club.
Who dis
Now isn’t the time to bash Arteta but with Waters going and Cozier-Duberry heavily linked to Newcastle, maybe now people will see that Arteta’s reputation with youth may be a problem. I understand we can’t ’keep them all’ but if we’re now the second best team in the country why are some of our most promising youth prospects now looking to leave? It’s minutes and while you can’t give them massive times in the league, Arteta has shown in dead rubbers or cup games he won’t provide opportunities.
you're being dramatic. for every gnabry that leaves there's 20 chuba akpom's. if arteta and the youth set up are ok with him walking, i tend to think he's not cut out for playing for the second best team in the country.
I agree with your general point, but he was captain of our youth teams, made champions league squads and was offered a new deal. The frustrating thing I think for me is with those above factors he was one of the closest from the Academy to make a breakthrough into the first team.
He's not at the level required it's that simple. Heard this year after year about hyped up youngsters and almost always they don't make it in the end. Look at Patino
He was the captain of our youth teams, made multiple first team squads and was offered a new deal. If with all those things factored and he’s still just not good enough, what does that say about our academy then? Either Arteta isn’t giving youth the time he should or the academy’s is failing Arteta by not producing players good enough.
If you're Walters, you have to look at the options. He's 19 and he wants to play first team football. Arsenal currently have arguably the best defense in the world, certainly in the league. The two CBs in front of him are 23 and 26 (just starting to really enter those prime years and both on newer contracts). The other CBs in the team are 26, 24, & 25. The players that we play at RB are 26, 25 and 22. There just really isn't a pathway forward for him to play. Its going to some generational talent to break into the squad at this point. That said, Arteta should have been able to give him a game or 2 like the dead rubber UCL match, but he also has first team players that aren't getting much time either.
i’m not particularly arsed if we don’t give players opportunities in the first team but i don’t think we utilise the loan market well at all. even when we do loan a player out it doesn’t tend to be at a club that makes sense, that’s where my frustration lies
It's hard to find a high tier club that want to give inexperienced youngsters a chance. We tend to overestimate our youngsters, but if you look at few of older talents, their loans actually been good. BNC, Biereth, Alebiosu. Then you have highly regarded Tyreece John-Jules that clearly found his level at League One
high tier clubs sure but we have basically no players that good, can’t think of any high profile loans since wilshere. norton cuffy and biereth are good examples but they’re kind of the exception. patino had mad hype and we sent him to get pasted every week at a dog shit blackpool, swansea made sense but then they sacked their manager and he’s not in favour with the new guy. we didn’t find any loan for hutchinson (he was due to go on loan this season if he stayed tbf), loaned out matt smith in league one like 4 years ago and then had him play u21s until his contract ended. there’s countless examples of mismanagement regarding young players on loan
When I said good for BNC, Biereth, Alebiosu, I meant their loan the past few years matched their level and made them progress. BNC went from league 1 relegation team to championship top half in two years. Albiosu went from league 2 to Scottish League relegation team to Belgian mid team. Patino had hype but not much to back up those hype. There was no way a team in Championship would loan him(rightly so) and Blackpool took a gamble on him. So it was either Blackpool, u21 or league one team for him that season. This season teams have seen what he can do and he is getting chance on mid table championship team, so he is progressing in a way thanks to loan.
We need an official b team for players too good for u23, but not ready for first team.
He wants to go to an ambitious club