Unai Emery says Arsenal have a responsibility to give young players a chance and promised that his teenage touring contingent will continue to get game time during the US tour.
While an experienced team started the Gunners 2-1 win against Bayern Munich, it was the youngsters who made the biggest impression.
Joe Willock looked composed in midfield, Reiss Nelson brought dynamism off the bench and Eddie Nketiah, courtesy of a Tyreece John-Jules assist, scored the decisive goal. Robbie Burton and Bukaya Saka also enjoyed late cameos.
“For them it’s important that each match and each training they give us their performance and energy,” Emery told his post-game press conference.
“We have the responsibility with the young players to give them chances.
“We want to use different young players to help. Some players will be with us in pre-season, some players will be with us in the season.
“Each minute they show their performance against big players. For example the one-to-one [Eddie] Nketiah against [Niklas] Sule showed how he can respond. Today was very positive.”
Asked if he’ll be relying on the youngsters this season, he added: “It depends on their performance. Against Colorado Rapids a lot of young players played.
“We need them for the moment but also in the future. Our responsibility in this club for the history, present and future is to give young players chance. If they deserve minutes they’ll get minutes. ‘’m very happy with them and their work.
“We are going to play against Fiorentina on Saturday and will use young players. It’s another chance for them to show us how they can respond.”
Emery also touched on Freddie Ljungberg’s involvement with the tour squad selection revealing it was the Swede, who last season managed the under-23s, who suggested including 19-year-old Burton.
“With Freddie we are working,” he said. “Above all he’s helping us with the young players because he knows better than us every young player.
“For example Robbie [Burton], I didn’t know Robbie. Freddie said to me he’s a good player with the capacity to play as a 6 or 8. Really he helped us like we needed.”
I remember individual players shining in preseason. Smith-Rowe last year and Iwobi and Nelson the year before. I also distinctly remember the Zelalem year, in Malaysia was it?
But I don’t ever remember having a whole crop of youngsters looking so hungry and so brimming with talent. Much needed positivity in, what feels like, shadowy times for gooners. Well done boys, keep it coming!
I’ve seen enough of Joe Willock now to have very high hopes for him. He really has been consistently impressive every time I’ve seen him. Box to box, tenacious, mobile and hard working. Exactly what we need now Rambo’s gone. I hope this is his breakout season.
I would love to see him become a regular, proper Keegan bloody-love-it.
Hard not to be impressed by Willock. He looks more comfortable, more poised with every additional opportunity.
I’d also really like to get in a proper right back–whether that’s Alves or someone else–to cover for Hector and allow Maitland-Niles to get back to playing midfield or maybe even as a winger, as he’d like. It’s easy to be disappointed when he’s forced to defend–that’ll never be his forte, at least not against high-quality opposition–but I still believe there’s a good player there if he’s allowed to focus on his strengths.
Agree with everything except signing dani Alves which I don’t think is realistic. I think we either need to promote a specialist right back from the youth squad or find a loan. AMN should only be used as a last resort/3rd choice at RB/WB.
We have osei-tu-tu (sorry i don’t know how to write it) gone on loan and I think he was the best youth right back we had? I think a signing, loan or permanent is to be done before the end of the transfer window.
I always want the club to have competition for positions in the club, keeps everyone honest in their application to improve. Bellerin has done a great job for us, looked to be having a great season last year before cut short by injury. But we need to remember how Bellerin got into that position in the first place, through Debuchy’s injury and he made the most of it by seizing the opportunity. I hope AMN does the same thing, not that I have anything against Bellerin, I just want the best player to be in that position for the club.… Read more »
There’s a real false sense of positivity about the club in the last couple of days, engendered by Emery’s talk of signings, a couple of friendly wins and, even if people don’t want to admit it, the oligarch’s corporate drivel. But the mismanagement will rear its head again not long into the new season. And that positivity will be sliced into the usual ennui and underperformance.
Everton Soares now following Gabriel Martinelli on Instagram. He is officially ours!!
I like the optimism, life should be this simple.
Very much so. He was also left out of the Gremio squad for last nights match. Ill take all fragments of optimism now haha.
Maybe Josh saying we should be excited about the transfer has some substance.
Tierney, Ceballos, Saliba (despite the loan back) and on top of that Everton will be a very good window. However let’s see, I wouldn’t get too excited till its announced on the official website.
Thanks for the bits of news to keep it interesting though 🙂
Yes, this lot in with an option to buy Ceballos granted he is a success would be a very satisfactory window indeed. Keeping my hopes up on this.
Agreed a good window, my only concern is that the one area we desperately needed to strengthen, ie. defence, we have not
That’s upto the injury gods. Bellerin for sure and Holding most likely are our first choice in defence out injured but on the way back. Similarly our bid for Tierney, who is also (hopefully) recovering and will be a likely first choice once assuming we manage the transfer.
The plan seems to be Tierney, Holding, Sokratis, Bellerin at the back and it would be a revamped back line. There are a lot of ifs and buts in that plan, so let’s see.
I believe the injury gods have been telling us to buy a center back for quite some time now.
Everton started last nights match for Gremio
Just to spoil your optimism, he may want to play in CL. Two years ago, we supposedly wanted Seri but couldn’t get him because he wanted CL football. It turned out to be that Seri played a lot of CL games with Fulham.
Well he also just recently went to the barbers for a shiny new haircut. Most likely to look good in the official signing video.
Freddie’s magic!
I hope this season Emery gives the youngsters more opportunities. He probably was a bit conservative in his first season, when he was getting to know his squad better.
#InternalSolutions
I’d rather we gave willock and amn a chance in midfield over xhaka and some real kid. The former I feel is kind of a lost cause, at times even looking disinterested and the latter will leave to benefit real.
Credit to Freddie and Per, we have really promising crop of young players coming in. Let’s get the club back on track with youthful energy. Also, suddenly the window is looking promising with so many voices (rumors) coming out. Hopefully we will have four credible players signed by the end of Window, as mentioned by Emery.
Fair enough. If they’re good enough, they’re old enough as they say. This could be a small silver lining in the dark cloud of our general financial position. That said, I’ve almost lost count of the number of promising youngsters considered to have had real “potential” who either came through the ranks or had been bought in (Wenger did a lot of this) but who ended up loaned out time and again, and then released or sold at a small fee. A total waste of time and effort all round. Let’s hope that there really is a more enlightened approach… Read more »
Now i have a feeling that Emery is not the man we need.I mean how can he not have a look at our youth team? Young lads showed that they hunger for glory. I heard that Sven Mislintat left because he thought signing Denis Suarez was silly. He wanted Carrasco OR promote Saka/Willock to the first team. I know it’s a bit too harsh for Emery in hist first season but i feel that he is not the kind of man we ‘re looking for. Let alone that m*ron Kroenke, we still need a coach who wants to promote young… Read more »
Looking at the style of play and technicality of the youngsters coming through, gotta be a big shout for Freddie to take over from Emery next year as his contract ends, after learning a bit this year. Freddie seems to be able to actually improve players and get them to play to their strengths. For me, the biggest criticism of Emery (beyond that unforgivable collapse at the end of the season) is that he just isn’t making the most of what he has. Frankly that’s got to be the primary remit of the first team coach in our modern backroom… Read more »
Funny thing is that under Arsene, the kids got ample playing time in the Europa league. Willock and Reiss didnt come up last season, nor did Eddie. Last season’s failure to integrate them more in the early stages Europa league seems to have cost us some young promising talents like Vontae, Musah and etc. They saw the path to the first team blocked, to the point that players like Osei tutu, Willock and Eddie failed to get opportunities even when the first team needed them, thus the U/18 players couldnt step up to the congested U/23 level. Blogs was preaching… Read more »
Emery will be shooting himself in the foot if he doesn’t give some of the young players a chance to be a part of the first team, throughout the season. Give them responsibility, and they will develop and mature, and they will heap the pressure on the more senior players to play their best (or be replaced by a kid!). Freddie, too, needs to keep the pressure on Emery — constructive competition — and it is a bit worrying that Emery doesn’t know the name and qualities of each and every one of our upper level academy players, but I… Read more »
Believe in the youths, buy noone, do a Sp#rs like last season and finish in the top 4..
Spuds did that because they had to save money for the new stadium. Pochettino was their ‘Wenger’ since he led his team to the Champions League final. Their situation is quite similar to ours 13 years ago.
But for whatever reason, selling the club to Kroenke was the worst decision made by Peter Hill Wood and Danny Fizman.
We certainly didn’t leave Highbury for this.
I agree. We were in the CL final when Kranker took over and look at where we are now. A multi-billion company but we are in a self-sustained business model. Wtf..Somebody needs to buy over Arsenal from that Krank family
Not just for us but also for England, would be nice to see some arsenal boys in the England line up again
WTF? Thumbs down for wanting our arsenal boys in the England team,,, surly not a arsenal fan then
Or English
Very impressed by the youngsters last night. I said this on a prior post, but I have to think that one or two of the might made the difference at the end of last season when everyone was so tired and we had no Ramsey.
AMN got roasted by Coman, which is not really a poor reflection on him, as Coman is very good and AMN is not naturally a defender. Need Bellerin back on that side.
Everybody’s talkin’ bout
Saka, Amaechi, Medley, Smith Rowe,
Osei-Tutu and Willock, Joe
Is Bielik gonna go?
All we are saying, is give Reiss a chance!
All we are saying, is give Reiss a chance!
Everybody’s talking bout
Stan Kroenke, Josh Kroenke, transfer doubts, club captain wants out,
Saliba, Soares, left-back to help us score,
Zaha, ha-ha, knowing me, knowing you, ah-HAH!
All we are saying, is give Reiss a chance!
All we are saying, is give Reiss a chance!