Before Arsenal face Manchester City on Sunday, the two teams will do battle at U23 level tonight.
Arsenal have gone three games without a win and will be determined to bounce back from the 3-0 defeat that they suffered away to Manchester United last time out.
When Arsenal last faced City in October it was something of a disaster for Steve Bould’s side, who had to play defender Taylor Foran in goal for the majority of the game as they ended up losing 4-1.
On this occasion Arthur Okonkwo is likely to start in goal, with Karl Hein having been on the bench for the first-team last night.
Omar Rekik and Miguel Azeez will be eager to prove that they are fit enough to feature, while it is possible that Reiss Nelson could receive another runout as he continues to be left out of matchday squads for the first-team.
Arsenal seemed somewhat unbalanced against United, although they weren’t helped by an early sending off for defender Daniel Oyegoke.
The young Gunners are fifth in the table, while City go into the game as league leaders, which demonstrates just how difficult a task this will be.
City have the likes of Liam Delap and Felix Nmecha in their side and thrashed Leicester 6-1 in their last game.
Tonight’s game kicks off a 7pm at Meadow Park. City will be showing the game live but only for their subscribers.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
Good update like always Jeorge, is there any reason why Arsenal don’t broadcast our U23?
Hey Jorge. Thanks so much for all you do. I saw ridiculous compilation of goals by Omari Hutchinson about a year ago and he looked like a sublime talent.
Maybe I haven’t been concentrating hard enough but I haven’t heard or seen a great deal written about him of late.
Is he pushing for u23 starts yet and how do you rate him as a prospect?
Again, thanks so much for all your articles. Blogs needs to get you on the arsecast again soon!
*Jeorge
Sorry.
I think he’s definitely ready to play for the U23s but the problem is there are quite a few older players ahead of him at the moment and sometimes midfielders like Cottrell and Cirjan have to be used out wide. I think Hutchinson will certainly get chances for the U23s next season, though. He’s one of the best prospects at the club.
Ah, great news that he’s still sizzling! I remember seeing a similar compilation of Dan Crowley and before that Thomas Eisfeld and they both just kind of disappeared into obscurity.
I always worry when I haven’t heard anything about a certain prospect for a little while if they’ve gone off the boil and been given a free transfer to Forest Green Rovers or summit…
Glad to hear the hutch is still smashing it!
Cheers fella!
Omari is a kind of phenomenon for me. I heard about his skill compilations, youtube vids and so on for such a long time, that I thought he must be 22 by now. But when I started looking into the youth setup recently, it was like … he is not even 18? One thing I noticed was him and Marcelo training free kicks near the penalty zone, and like two days later he scored one from a very similar position in a game. Thought that was a really good sign. I’m very interested, if a second CAM will come through… Read more »
Wonder if Runarsson plays tonight as Hein was in the first team squad last night.
Okonkwo. In the article.
Any word on why Balogun didn’t play?