Having suffered a serious hamstring injury last season Stephy Mavididi will surely be pleased just to be fully fit again but the Arsenal striker’s loan spell at Championship club Preston North End hasn’t exactly worked out as expected so far.
Mavididi has started just one league game so far this season – as a right winger – and has yet to find the net. However, the 19-year-old does at least appear to be part of the club’s plans in some capacity this season, which is more than can be said for Cohen Bramall at Birmingham City.
A powerful striker with excellent technique, Mavididi was a regular on the scoresheet for Arsenal at youth level and frequently played above his age group, while he made the bench for the first-team in the League Cup last campaign.
The prospect showed some encouraging initial signs on loan at Charlton Athletic in the second half of last season but his campaign was cruelly cut short by his aforementioned injury.
This season, however, has had some positive moments so far for Mavididi, one of which came this week as he hit a brace for England U20s in their 4-0 thrashing of Czech Republic.
That brace will undoubtedly boost Mavididi’s confidence and it is hoped now that the Hale End graduate will receive further time for Preston and showcase his credentials in the Championship.
Mavididi will certainly hope to avoid the fate suffered by Chuba Akpom, who scored goals galore for Arsenal at youth level but was anything but prolific during his various loan spells.
So far Mavididi has played eleven senior games without finding the net but his first goal will hopefully be a precursor to many more.
The youngster’s long-term objective, of course, remains to break into the Arsenal first-team, although his chances in that regard could be affected by the excellent progress of Eddie Nketiah.
Mavididi, though, is still a very talented player and he will be determined now to seize his opportunity at Preston if, indeed, he is afforded one.
Who was the last academy striking prospect to break through? Nicky B?
Who was the pact academy CB to make it through?
We seem to make CMs and AMs almost annually
Iwobi
He’s a no.10. I already said we make AMs and CMs regularly.
The Dennis Bergkamp effect.
Why do we loan players out to lower league clubs where they don’t even get regular game time? I thought that was the whole point. They go somewhere and get first team experience.
They’d be better off staying at arsenal and training with the senior squad than languishing on the bench at some other club.
Good luck to him!
Birmingham City beat Cardiff last night and Cohen Bramall was no where to be seen.
May as well bring him back in January, the thing is he might have got a couple of games in the League Cup if he’d stayed.
Yeah, the change of manager really seems to have screwed him over. It’s a shame because he’s not that young, so he really needs to make his loan spell count. Hopefully he can get some game time somewhere soon. But both Gnabry and Bellerin had pretty unsuccessful loan spells before they broke through too, so hopefully he can do the same.
Unfortunately, this happens way too often with our players. Something needs to change
While there’s no doubt that Akpom has struggled on loan, his strongest position is CF, and he’s much weaker as a winger which is where he was used too often on loan. Whereas Mavididi is a better ‘all round’ player who can play in a number of positions without looking out of place. So he really should be seeing more game time, although that obviously depends upon his fitness level.
Whether he’s a better CF than Akpom is debatable, time will tell.