Xavier Amaechi was making excellent progress, with the winger building upon his performances from last season to establish himself as a key part of the Arsenal U23 team despite still being eligible to represent the U18s.
Then, cruelly, he was stopped in his tracks, with a foot injury sustained on international duty with England U18s ruling the Hale End product out until 2019.
The injury certainly came at an unfortunate time for Amaechi, who could well have trained with the first-team squad at some stage if he had continued to progress at such a rate, but he now faces the long, hard road to recovery.
During that time, though, Amaechi will be able to reflect upon the excellent progress that he has made, with his performances having often been of a very high standard.
Despite being left footed Amaechi is usually deployed on the right wing, where his excellent dribbling can torment opposing defenders.
Capable of playing precisely-weighted passes with regularity, the prospect is a fine crosser of the ball and is also known to hit powerful shots on goal.
Part of the Arsenal side that reached the FA Youth Cup final last season, Amaechi has long been identified as an excellent prospect but his progress has perhaps been a little ahead of schedule as he has already demonstrated that he is able to make a major impact for the second-string.
Amaechi will be eased back slowly from his injury once he is available again, and he will be frustrated to miss some intriguing games in the Checkatrade Trophy as well as the usual U23 league fixtures and the commencement of the club’s new Youth Cup campaign.
There is much for him to look forward to, however, with Amaechi hoping to help the U23s retain the title in the second half of the campaign, while first-team involvement in some capacity next season isn’t beyond the realms of possibility if he can quickly recapture his momentum once back fit.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
A tricky winger with great crossing? Can’t come soon enough
What kind of ‘foot injury’ keeps a player out for 13 weeks+? Was it run over by a steam roller ?
Was thinking the same … either way that sucks. Good luck to him and a speedy recovery.
Broken Metatarsal.
Get well soon, son.
We seem to have had a huge number of youngsters out with long term injuries in recent years.
Whilst I’m sure a bit of injury time is an important part of their development it does seem as though there’s work to be done on injury prevention at academy level