Despite the fact his chances of regular first team football are slim, Chuba Akpom wants the chance to stay and fight for a place in the Arsenal side this season.
The 19 year old has Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez ahead of him in the pecking order for a striking place and conventional wisdom would suggest a loan spell might be best for his development, but in the short-term at least he wants to remain at the Emirates.
“I’d prefer to stay here and fight for a place and give it my all and compete with the other strikers,” said.
“There is a lot of talent in the team but I think I am capable of competing and getting a place in the team, it’s all down to hard work.
“The boss really likes playing young players when he can and that motivates the young players because it shows them that they have a chance.”
You can’t fault his desire to challenge himself, but it remains to be seen how it all pans out as the season progresses.
And Akpom is confident a good season lies ahead for the Gunners.
“This season I think everyone will say there is good team spirit and cohesion since we went on tour and now so the team is looking strong and I think we have a chance of a major trophy.
“Hopefully we can keep this team strong for many years to come. There are a lot of young players coming through and everyone will be familiar with how players play and that can only make players stronger.”
yay
You’d think the guy would know that to be impressive to Arsene, the surest way is to pass the ball at the right time, not try and take on every defender. Do feel a little for the guy though, must be the pressure of Jeff and Iwobi doing so well.
He clearly wants a goal under his belt as well – when he gets an official goal, I have the feeling he’ll simmer down a bit. Wenger surely knows that too.
love the guys attitude and commitment but he’s no ian wright, needs a lone out this season, maybe in the championship
Ian Wright was an incredibly late bloomer. It’s a little unfair to compare a 19 year old Akpom with Ian Wright. He was 28 when we signed him (21 when he started as a pro at Palace).
Akpom is still, essentially, a kid. The next couple of years will determine whether he really has what it takes. He seems to have the right attitude, but I do agree that a loan move could do wonders for him.
The only thing I would add, if he were to go on loan, is that it would have to be to a club that plays in a similar style. That would allow him to transition more smoothly to the first team should he be successful.
I would say someone like Middlesbrough in the Championship would be a good fit for him.
He’s not ready to play for first team…had some decent chances in the games Ive seen him in…needs to be more calm while finishing and decision making for final pass…send him out on loan…
Agreed. Would be great if one of the newly promoted PL teams take him on loan
He won’t get a game with the newly promoted PL teams. There is too much money riding on PL survival for a club to take a punt on a 19 year old kid who has it all to do.
Akpom needs games, whether it be in the championship or lower, it is simple as that. His decision making and team ethic won’t improve until he gets those games.
Send him to charlton, then we will see if he’s ready…
I agree he’s nowhere near ready and doesn’t seem to have made significant progress from a couple of years when he looked really promising in the UEFA Youth League. In fact, he may even have slightly regressed. I don’t agree at all about the loan move, therefore. He’s had three already in the lower leagues (Coventry, Brentford and Forest, I think) without scoring a single goal, so I don’t blame him for not wanting to repeat the experience. No club needing three points on a Saturday would give him much playing time because he simply isn’t useful enough at the… Read more »
That doesn´t make any sense. Do Arsenal not need 3 points on a Saturday? The fact is at his age he needs game time, and he´s more likely to get that somewhere else. Even with one or two injuries, there are still too many players ahead of him. Just training with the first team will not get him to the level required. He needs competitive football. Even top level established players struggle if they are out of the team for a while. Sitting on the bench at Arsenal is no use to him, and with everyone fit does he even… Read more »
He’ll play in the domestic cups and the under-21s. That’s more than enough competitive games to keep him busy. He’s nowhere league level or Championship level; in fact he’s nowhere near even Sanogo’s level as yet. Sure, he got a hat-trick v. Singapore, but they were worse even than youth level here. Sanogo, who got four against big-club opposition in the Emirates Cup, was barely used by Palace, not even making their bench towards the end of the loan spell. As a result, he not only gained no useful experience, his confidence took a bad knock: ‘I didn’t think I… Read more »
This is my point. There´s football, like the Emirates Cup where Sanogo can score four in a game, and then there´s competitive football, where there is more at stake. Under-21s is closer to the former, and from what I understood, Akpom had largely outgrown that level anyway. He needs confidence which will come from scoring goals at a competitive level which comes from getting minutes at a competitive level, and I don´t think under 21s is that level nor will he get the minutes with the first team. I agree that finding the right fit for him clubwise is important,… Read more »
Nah, he’s staying to study at the feet of Benzema. Check out Instagram. Well, it has been the ONLY reliable source of info this window.
Kids got a bright future, hes very good player… He was probably the leading candidate out of the youngsters to get a few frist team chances this season. However after the emirates cup i think Iwobi and Jeff pushed ahead of him.
Out on loan with you, laddie. You hold the ball too long and look a bit selfish. You can spot some nice passes, but you need to grow a bit. Best of luck.
Good attitude and sensible, he probably will learn more with Arsenal players than another lower level team.
Good physically, fast, good feet, though still very young. Here’s hoping…
My thoughts exactly, he is pretty good physically for his age so it’s not really anything of that mould he needs to work on. He could go out on loan to a lesser team (would probably have to be championship to guarantee mins) or he could stay training/learning with the likes of Ozil (calmness), Sanchez (work rate & dribbling), Giroud (hold up & team play), Walcott (timing of runs and not to mention having Wenger looking over you every day, he’s in a good place
I always think that if Benik Afobe (40 goals at U16s, almost a goal a game at higher youth levels, targeted by Barca) appearances had stayed and trained at Arsenal he would now be in the first team squad at least. Instead, too many loans and he is only developing now.
Injuries is what delayed Afobes’ rise.
Agreed. He has a bit to learn – & was guilty of trying to hard over the weekend – but I like his attitude. I think he might learn more at Arsenal than elsewhere. And who knows what might happen over the course of the season? Fair play to the lad.
Dont think hes particularly selfish, but as a young striker trying to break inmto the 1st team, he’s aware that he has to score to make an impression.
Im sure he’ll get a chance to play in the league cup and hopefully he’ll get his 1st senior goal.
I’m fine with him not going on loan and training with the first team guys. Throw in some sub appearances and a start in the League Cup and I’ll be happy. The problem at the moment is he is just desperate to score and prove his worth that is why he is being selfish and shooting at every opportunity. Spending some time on the training pitch will help him feel like he belongs.
When he has that then ware golden.
Of all the young players who have been selected this preseason I thought Chuba was the most underwhelming. On those showings, he will not even get on the 1st-team bench, so best for him to go out on loan and get regular minutes. Otherwise he will only get under-21 ones.
IMHO.
underwhelming apart from the hattrick
I watched that game, and MY opinion is even in that game he was underwhelming. Missed hosts of chances, his movement looked “meh” to me, and his decision making was about 5/10 (read selfishness).
He was generally underwhelming to ME, and that’s before I compare him to Iwobi or to (drumrolls…) The Jeff!
If he’s gonna fight for his place, i recommend he fights Theo.
theo is slight and brittle and has the physicality of an angry lamb. Whereas Giroud is a big handsome bastard while Alexis is built like a MMA middle weight and would most likely kill anyone if he felt like it.
This actually made me laugh out loud. Literally, not the metaphorical kind of laughing out loud with the overused acronym. I don’t understand how you’ve been thumbed down for that.
Yep, made me giggle out loud which is practically the same thing but more of a gol than a lol.
The 4 people who gave this a thumbs-down must be sadists. Come on people!!
No, they’re probably just afraid for Theo.
He’s got the ability, he needs the belief, and once he gets his first senior goal (with us, or on loan), you get the feeling he’ll start scoring aplenty. A second-half-of-the-season loan with a championship side fighting for promotion, or a bottom-half-of-the-table PL side would be great for his development. It’s sad that Afobe had to leave, I really hope we can hang on to this lad. One to watch out for, for sure
He particularly has higher chances to feature in premier league early on the season, considering Welbeck is out injured. If we are safe with a two-goal cushion while Walcott and Sanchez playing on wings, Wenger would definitely put him in place of Giroud. Sure he is hungry for goals, and if he stays calm too, he will definitely grab a few goals with Ozil, Santi and Ramsey feeding him good balls.
I very much doubt Wenger will bring Akpom on when he still has 3 of Ramsey, Wilshere, Cazorla and Ox on the bench. Actually, I very much doubt Akpom would be on the bench in the first place.
Hell, if Bellerin scored twice from open play last year, I don’t see why Akpom can’t.
Saw people saying he was doing a bit too much to score in the emirates cup. If he had that hunger for pre season warm up games i would be very excited to see how he comes out and perform on matchday. He surely is a talent and would love to see him blossom.
You can never tell just how someone is going to turn out unless you see them day-after-day, week-after-week in training. For fans who often only get glimpses – good and bad – it gets a bit unbalanced. So we have to trust in the manager and his coaches. The proof of this is in the question: just how many (young) AFC players have we let leave the club that have gone on to exceed expectations. Even Coquelin (who I believe to be a real deal) was tried at Lorient, Freiburg, and Charlton in roles that were never congruent to his… Read more »
I think that should say “Afobe? Not at the highest level YET”.
I hope he does, but we’ll see.
Your argument is backwards. If you’re saying we don’t let players leave who’ll become any good later, that doesn’t mean that everyone who stays will become really good. After all, we did keep Bendtner around for ages.
And he became The Greatest Striker That Ever Lived….so that doesn’t really support your argument ; )
Actually, we wanted Bendtner to leave a long time ago…He just chose to run down his contract!!
It was renewed at least once before he finally left.
AP True, there was a time we’d keep players who were nowhere nearly as good as the crop we have now. But I’m apt to think those days are now mostly behind us – though not completely. I don’t think it’ll ever be ‘completely’. Now, we’re no longer looking for the next Gervinho, Chamakh, or Bendtner but neither are we looking to keep the likes of Jay Simpson, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, or Benik Afobe. We can all hope that ‘old boy’ players make it elsewhere, but since the standard (at Arsenal) is now being raised year-on-year the standard for ‘making it… Read more »
Too eager to score and impress in a hurry, wants to do everything himself. In all his games with the first team, i havent seen one game where he hasnt ignored players in a better position only to try some improbable angle. I find him very frustrating and quite useless in a team game. There is a reason Iwobi and Adelaide got starts, and a reason why Arsene mentions their names much ahead of him when he counts the youngsters. Having talent is great, but if he cant learn how to play with the team in this season and maybe… Read more »
My car radio doesn’t seem to be working.
I have just heard Adrian Durham say that “the title is there for the taking” by Arsenal, even with no more additions!
On my way to Halfords….COYG!
He needs to get on loan in a hurry if you ask me. Plenty of champ teams need a striker like Chuba..Derby, Forest, Burnley etc. He’d be better making that loan move early and establishing himself in a team before the season starts. Then do what Bamford did last season and bingo! He’d have a sniff of a real opportunity at The Arsenal
What on earth is Chuba meant to say? “I am not worthy a place in this squad and need to be sent to an inferior team?” All this hype when he plays good and when he does not play good in pre season training. At the moment he is essential until we sign a striker. Welbeck is injured and if we lose either Girroud or Walcott we have no main striker. So lets see if we buy reinforcements as if we dont it would be stupid to put him on loan.
Comment: so some can easily write off a 19yr old just because he didnt score in a game or failed to make the right decision everytime he had the ball despit being the highest goal scorer in the preseason. i prefare him to stay with us and fight for his shirt as long as he believes in his own ability. bellerin was on loan before but always on the bench. coq went on loan in germany but never given the chance he needed. many of our youth players on loan were never given the chance the united, chelsea and liverpool… Read more »
I don’t think anyone has written him off.
This is about whether he’s better staying or going on loan like Sanogo (last pre-seasons highest goal scorer)!
He looked good in the Asia trophy game but fell short in the Emirates cup. Was frustratingly greedy I thought. Sure, he’s desperate for goals right now but he’s a long way off ready for the first team on this weekend’s showing. Was disappointed not to see Crowley (as I too am a Crowley) but I guess his attempted long range chip in the Asia trophy signalled he needs more time. Iwobi was impressive but Adelaide looked brilliant. Calm in possession, good range of passing, nice skills and seems very strong for a skinny kid.
I like the lad’s attitude. If you’re going to be one of the best you have to play and compete with some of the best. Good luck Chuba!
I pray he can calm down because he has the gifts to be a great striker. He should be allowed to stay behind to learn more from his seniors.
I think some decent long training spells under the guidance of God (Thierry) will do him the world of good. lets face it, Thierry is our greatest ever striker – did he ever get accused of being greedy?
After the hat trick against Singapore, everybody was leaping on the bandwagon and saying things like Akpom should start ahead of Walcott or even Giroud. After making a couple of poor pass or shoot decisions against Wolfsburg, everybody is saying he’s nowhere near good enough and should go out on loan. A little perspective here, please. Akpom is a superb talent who needs some polishing before he can be called a finished article. He’s not the next Messi, nor is he the next Jeffers. The lad is in exactly the right place to finish learning his trade. He’s got four… Read more »
http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-fan-gets-manchester-united-to-update-website-to-reflect-their-fa-cup-supremacy-10420013.html
Oh c’mon it’s getting really ridiculous now.
The level of unnecessary negativity around a young reserve player trying to step up, that in too pre-season !
Leave him alone. Don’t act all spoilt brats now just because other boys were exceptional.
It’s an old school of thought, but sometimes I wonder if it is best for young players development that they stay out of media focus and micro discussions. Take off unneeded pressure. And I say so myself being a PR person.
But, HOW can we we rate Chuba if we like Iwobi and Jeff?? We can’t support ALL our players at the same time, can we!?
I sometimes wonder why Maureen has so much criticism towards Wenger. Too be honest its quite clear. “Wenger is successful in failure.”He has just delivered in what he forecasted before the Emirates stadium Project and we would have to wait at least 10 years before we could compete with rich clubs. He was right and he also predicted more british players and now we have Jack, Gibbs, Theo, Ox, Chambers. The difference between Maureen and Wenger and why Maureen hates Wenger so much is Maureen is good coach but the Prof is a project manager a director and the future… Read more »
If the good young Spanish, French and Italian kids can go to another country to get experience why can’t English kids? Getting the sh$t kicked out of himself in the Championship by some brutish clogger, but maybe a season in Germany, Portugal or Holland where they play good football wouldn’t do him any harm. Think of it as a “gap” year and part of his football education.
Part of the deal with going out on loan is to get the kid into a different environment where he has to interact with new people and doesn’t have his ‘mates’ to fill in his spare time. It’s a big change and makes a lad grow up if he really wants to be a professional footballer. Because of this, a loan to a club where he can’t go back to his home every evening is better than a loan to a club up the road. As English is the worlds 2nd language, for kid to come here is difficult but… Read more »
“Cohesion” – The whole team is so in sync, even the young players, that they all use the same vocabulary.
to be honest, i dont think hes an arsenal type of player. i mean, imagine hes doing what hes doing at the big stage(trying to all defender out there on the field on his own when theres three of our players free on both of his wing) it seems to me this guy put his head down immediately after the ball is at his feet. ARSENAL dont play that way.
Despite what everyone is saying, I honestly don’t think a loan move is the best option for Chuba. Based on his performances in the Emirates cup, the main flaw in his game at the moment is that he doesn’t play the Arsenal way; he doesn’t look for the pass instead of the shot and he tries too hard for personal glory. That’s something that needs to be coached out of his game at this club, because you can’t learn the philosophy of one club by playing for a different one. Also if he doesn’t wanna pass the ball here, and… Read more »