Arsenal have confirmed that defender Zak Swanson has joined Portsmouth on a permanent deal for an undisclosed fee.
The 21-year-old has signed a two-year deal at Fratton Park having spent 15 years working his way through the ranks at Hale End and London Colney.
Last season, the right-back spent six months with Dutch side MVV Maastricht.
Explaining the driving force behind the deal, Pompey boss Danny Cowley said: “We’ve highlighted that we want to try to bring talented young players to the club.
“Zak is exactly that and brings an energy and athleticism to our squad after a fantastic footballing education at Arsenal.
“He’s technically very good and has lovely passing skills, along with the ability to manipulate the ball in tight areas.”
He added: “We love the fact that he’s versatile. We’ve seen him play in a number of positions for Arsenal and he does them all equally well.”
Swanson is the third academy graduate to be sold this summer after Jordi Osei-Tutu signed for Bochum and Dan Ballard was recruited by Sunderland.
Best of luck for the future, Zak.
Yess!!! We’re finally turning around our bad business model…I hope we have buy back clauses or significant sell on clauses included…
Best of luck, Zak!
We are making decisions faster. This is absolutely the right way to go. Better for the player and the club.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see him follow the likes of Isaac Hayden or Semi Ajayi into the Premier League some day
Wonder how much we sold him for…🙄
Surely better to have got some money and not hold the lad back, whatever the fee? He wasn’t going to get into our team.
Shame he never got a Swansong to say goodbye to the fans