A season that promised so much for the Arsenal youngsters on the trophy front has rather petered out, with last night’s FA Youth Cup exit at the hands of Chelsea confirming that the young Gunners will not win any silverware this campaign.
Chelsea won 1-0 at Emirates Stadium last night to progress to the Final with a 3-1 aggregate victory. The Blues were by far the more dominant side over the course of the two legs, as they restricted Arsenal’s attacking momentum whilst creating numerous chances of their own.
Arsenal were hugely reliant on goalkeeper Josh Vickers, who made several impressive saves to keep the scoreline down, but a rare mistake from the youngster, coupled with some disappointing defending, enabled Charlie Colkett to score in the first-half to effectively kill off the tie.
Gedion Zelalem, who was far from his best at Stamford Bridge, was a little more impressive last night, but Arsenal still failed to get enough support to lone striker Chuba Akpom, whilst wingers Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Alex Iwobi, who had been so influential earlier in the competition, were only able to show glimpses of their ability.
Chelsea were superior physically and tactically, although Arsenal can still take heart from the fact that this was their longest run in the competition since they last won it in 2009. Of that team only Jack Wilshere, who watched the game last night, has since established himself as a first-team regular, emphasising just how difficult it is to make the grade at Arsenal.
Zelalem is already in the first-team squad and, as he becomes stronger, will improve further, whilst Akpom has shown much promise and centre-back Julio Pleguezuelo, signed from Barcelona last Summer, also looks a good prospect for the future.
Arsenal and Chelsea will do battle again at Emirates Stadium next week at U21 level, with the possibility arising that Wilshere and Abou Diaby, who are working their way back to fitness following injuries, could feature at some stage. That game is one of just four remaining fixtures in what has been a hugely eventful season for Arsenal at youth level.
They also made good progression in the UEFA Youth League and the U21 Premier League Cup, only to be knocked out of both competitions in the latter stages. Considerable changes will be afoot next season, with Dutchman Andries Jonker taking charge of the Academy and, hopefully, making some improvements to the overall development system.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
Photo by Kieran Clarke
One of the commentators during the game last night commented that much of the Chelsea team was 18+, while the arsenal team was predominantly 16/17. Be interesting to know if this was true, if so surely it defeats the whole purpose of having the cup? Those years are massive for development, both physically and mentally, so it’s no wonder they were completely dominated.
Yep – reminds me of when the U21’s lost to Boro (I think) – I looked up their scorers and they were both nearly 30! while our guys were mostly U18.
That’s why youth competition is a bit of a false metric – you just have to look at how individual players are doing and see if they make the step up.
I watched the last 15 minutes of game and agree with every word on this article. I think Tafari Moore is a real prospect.
Great though
Diaby must be like 33 by now… At least.
But his football age is only 21!
I went to the game last night and came away with the conclusion that I really couldn’t see any of the Arsenal players making the grade. I sincerely hope I’m wrong……
Especially since the Chelsea squad is far from being unbeatable. I watched them play against Schalke in the UEFA Youth League quarterfinals and they were virtually chanceless (except for a period of maybe ten minutes in the second half).
Have no fear fellow gooners, they’ll learn from the defeat (ain’t that right Jeorge?)
For the record that wasn’t me being blind to the fact that Chelsea were far superior- some of their players look extremely promising. Was just a genuine question regarding the players’ ages.
I think that you miss the point of the youth matches in your reviews. Its not about the results now, its about player development. Very few players from any youth team will ever break through – who are the likely prospects and how are they progressing? The performance of the team itself is really secondary. As someone noted, Arsenal tend to push players ahead so they’re competing against older players. Obviously this doesn’t help with your results at the youth team stage, they’re looking at the longer term.
Ah I think we’re being sold by the media that Chelsea’s youth are much better than ours, which has most of us here a bit panicky. It may be the case really but look at this way, the FA youth cup is in no way a measure of how good these kids will be. We won it with Pennant and Bentley FFS. And even if Chelsea’s youngsters are good, they’re never gonna break through, not at a cheque book club with the biggest cheque book cunt of a manager ever known. They had KDB and sold him, had Matic and… Read more »