Arsenal have confirmed that goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo will spend the second half of the season with Austrian side Sturm Graz.
The 21-year-old has impressed on loan at League Two Crewe Alexandra this season but was recalled earlier this week when the continental opportunity arose.
Sturm Graz are currently on a mid-season break but have a couple of friendlies coming up before a crunch Austrian Cup quarter-final with league leaders RB Salzburg on 3 February. They resume their league campaign a week later.
Interestingly, they crashed out of the Europa League on goal difference after all four teams in Group F finished on the same number of points.
Okonkwo was promoted to the Arsenal first team before the start of last season but is yet to make his senior debut for the club and is currently behind Aaron Ramsdale, Matt Turner and Karl Hein in the pecking order. Of course, he’s still very young so he may well have a future at the club.
Best of luck to Arthur in Austria.
Congrats, Okonkwo. Continue to soar to greater heights.
Sturm have an established first-choice keeper, but I hope that we have received some sort of guarantees for playing time for Arthur. Otherwise taking him out of a loan, where he was playing regularly and successfully, albeit in L2, make little sense.
Maybe he should take Lloris with him so okonkwo can teach him a few things
lloris is doing a fabulous job where he is, thank you very much
Lloris scored a cracker the other day
Arthur is a very promising young keeper, here’s to hoping he can take a step forward with this loan move abroad and perhaps leapfrog hein in the pecking order for next season (as his size makes him a more attractive option in my opinion to the estonian)
Size isn’t everything, it’s how you use that size that counts.