Ahead of Arsenal’s trip to take on Manchester United, Unai Emery called upon two members of the U23 squad for the final training session.
One of them, Bukayo Saka, was always likely to be involved given that he has featured prominently for the first-team recently, but the inclusion of Joseph Olowu was a little more surprising.
Olowu was only involved as Hector Bellerin and Konstantinos Mavropanos, as well as the majority of the U23 players, had a recovery day after featuring for the second-string against Liverpool on Saturday.
However, getting to train with the squad was a major boost for Olowu and will provide him with an incentive to keep working hard as he looks to earn similar experiences in the future.
Usually a centre-back but also capable of playing at right-back, the 19-year-old is currently someway down the pecking order with regards to first-team opportunities, and even at U23 level he has the likes of Zech Medley and Harry Clarke to compete with.
When he has featured for Steve Bould’s side, though, Olowu has largely been impressive, using his strength to good effect and appearing composed on the ball.
The next step for the youngster could perhaps see him head out on loan in January, with first-team opportunities at Arsenal unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future.
Still, his involvement in training yesterday gave Olowu a chance to show to Emery what he is capable of, and he will hope that eventually he will be given an opportunity.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
In these days of social media self opinionated claptrap I thought I’d post as then I can be first (as if that ever matters) even though I don’t really have any knowledge about and have yet to see Joseph Olowu play football.
My comment is simply
Well done for being called up and the very best of luck to him in his quest to make it at our great club.
Well done and best of luck would suffice.
Fair play.