Hector Bellerin says he has no regrets about swapping Barcelona for London, and the rising star of the Gunners back four says he’s enjoying life in the first team right now.
He started the campaign as the third choice right-back, behind Mathieu Debuchy and Calum Chambers, but after injury to the Frenchman and a touch of first full season burn-out for the young Englishman, Bellerin has grown steadily into the role.
With 23 appearances and 2 goals to his name, Bellerin’s performances have ensured his place in the squad and even when Debuchy is fit he may have to sit and wait for a chance to present itself, much like the 20 year old did this season.
“Sometimes you only get once chance and I took it,” he told the official site, as he looked back on the decision to leave Barcelona for Arsenal.
“I left there as a kid and now I feel like a man,” he said. “I’ve grown up a lot because I left at 16 to come to another country, another culture.
“You really have to grow up and there’s a lot of things that have changed. When I was there I used to play as a winger and now I’m playing as a defender. I feel I’ve grown up on and off the pitch and I feel really confident now as a right back.
“I’ve only played there for four years but I’m feeling really confident that I can play there, and that I’m proving to everyone that I can play.”
And he’s targeting a strong finish to the season to avoid a Champions League qualifier in August.
“We can finish second place now,” he said, “and to be able to not play the Champions League qualifier is a weight off our shoulders as well.
“We need to get as many points as we can, starting with Swansea.”
Me too!
He is done well but there is more to come from him. Contrast that to Man U buying shaw for £27m and paying £120k per week. Bellerin is head and shoulders above him in every sense.
You’re so right. Head and shoulders above him.
I’d give his first season pantene out of ten…
We all should rejoice that he is clear-ly talented
Well, not every sense. He can’t eat NEARLY as many meat pies.
1 united fan in the house
agreed, and I am also curious what he would look like as the right winger now that Ramsey is hurt, haha.
Sorry Theo 🙁
The way he finishes, he doesn’t look out of place at all as a right winger
Very true. He’ll be cleaning out the opposition soon.
He has his family over here with him, that must help.
Fast and skilful, loves the club, hope he stays a long time.
Has he actually ever said he loves the club? It would be great if he has but I’m not sure he has.
He clearly loves the opportunity and seems to be very professional (he said he aim was always to be a footballer not a footballer who plays for Barca).
It’s goes to show how difficult it must be to gauge how well a young player will do.
On his is loan spell at Watford, Zola didn’t even rate him highly enough to make regular appearances at Championship level.
Coquelin was only deemed good enough to play for Charlton as a pre-cursor to winding down his contract.
Sometimes your solutions are right there in front of you without you even knowing it.
To be fair to Mr Zola, the kid has progressed an unreal amount in the last 6 months. If rate of progress could be extrapolated back 18 months then maybe at that point he wasn’t quite ready. But based on a similar linear rate of progression, and this time extrapolating forward, just think what we will have on our hands this time next year…
Progress is in steps, so lots of plateaus followed by leaps ahead. It won’t be linear.
Don’t be frustrated if he plateaus for a while (he’ll still be great).
Wenger unlike Sir Alex will leave us with a team that wont have reached its full potential. All over the pitch we have players (should they progress as expected) that could be with us for up to a decade. Bellerin, Chambers, Chamberlain, Gnabry, Zelalem, Bielik, Sanogo even Campbell, wilshere, Ramsey, Coquelin, Jenko, Szcezny arent that old. Love the direction the club is heading these days.
Isn’t that the difference between Wenger and Fergi. One who is always looking at wider picture and the other consumed by his own legacy! The RVP deal typified that. Wenger had to sell his prized asset, that he carefully nurtured. Any one remembers the hot-headed reputation that RVP came with, when we signed him in his early 20s. Also, me was more a winger. Most pundits said, he is not the type of player would be a successful CF in the English league! However Wenger made him the most lethal frontman beyond the other two (Messi and Ronaldo). Fergi bought… Read more »
‘Ector Bayereen, we love you.
Januzaj…anyone?
sigh…
You remind me of Santori and his Pato obsession
I’m not sure he can play at RB.
I really hope he stays for a long time. Love this kid, with his spanglish accent! With him and Jenks in the long run, and Debuchy for the next 2/3 years, we have the RB position covered. Since ‘mes que un club’ have their lovely transfer ban this summer, one can only assume the not-so-subtle tapping up and DNA talk will start this November. I hope we have given him enough encouragement to have him resist approaches from Barca. Sign him up on a massive contract asap!
Bloggs, did you nick the “happy Hector” line off me? 🙂
Didn’t you steal it off the children’s television show ‘Tilly and Friends’?
Nope Hector’s House
He needs to be loaned out…!
S/F
Sarcasm Font clearly not working!
Santi was happy …..Alexis was happy!….ozil was happy!, now hector is happy!…..and all of them makes me happy!
This kid can potentially save us 30 million in the market. He could be that good. Unreal potential. Just hope we cut him some slack when he inevitably goes through a rocky period, which most youngsters do. But you can see he has Cesc level of maturity and skill at this young stage, and I do not feel worried at all about seeing him in the starting eleven, even in big games. I like Jenks a lot, but I am still a bit nervous when he starts. That fear was lessening as he played more for us, but Bellerin is… Read more »
Was it le Prof who converted Bellerin from a winger to a full-back? Wouldn’t be surprised — he’s the master at finding the right position for his players, even unexpected ones.
Yeah, or at least he changed over right at about the time we bought him. I’m not sure he had never played a game there before but it was after moving to us that he really got comfortable in the position.
A happy Hector is better than a smiling fabrigaz. One is on a steady ship while the later is hanging by a thread on a whirl wind. Bring on the swans pls….. these guys are hungry for the European free play off slot.
A 3 nil loss for Spurs today. Not one comment from the BBC. The media’s self annointed pretenders to our throne have yet again proved false prophets wrong. Some gibberish by someone called Brewin attempting to explain Saint Totteringham’s day on the ESPN website. What’s there to explain? He missed the point completely attempting to equate our current financials as one of the reason. When Wenger took over in the late nineties , our financial gap was much closer. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Since then we have finished consistently ahead of them and in CL where they have… Read more »
yes, chelsea is boring. and it’s the only way they can win anything.
Bellerin hope you will not betray us and go back to spain too