Arsenal have confirmed that highly-rated academy prospect Myles Lewis-Skelly has signed his first professional contract at the club after turning 17 at the end of September.
The midfielder joined Arsenal at the age of nine and has worked his way through the ranks to become a regular for the under-18s and under-21s.
Lewis-Skelly was part of July’s scholarship intake and one of three teenagers to be included in the first team’s pre-season training camp in Germany, which included a cameo off the bench in the 1-1 draw with FC Nurnberg. The youngster is now hoping for more chances to impress Mikel Arteta.
“It feels amazing,” Myles told Arsenal.com after penning his new deal.
“I’m so delighted because, since I was a boy, I’ve been dreaming of this moment right here. To say that I’m a professional football player now is a dream come true for me and I just want to thank all the staff and all my family that come to support me. For the support around me, I couldn’t be any more grateful.
Looking to the future, he added: “I know it will be quite tough but the next objective is to break through to the first team. I believe that my ability and mindset can really distinguish me from the rest.
“Hopefully, if they give me opportunities, I can take them and keep working, keep my head down, and hopefully the results can take care of themselves.
“It’s so good just to learn from the players, learn their good habits and implement them into my game so I can keep developing and enjoy that environment because I like to ask questions and learn from the best.”
Congratulations to Myles, we hope to see more of him in the coming year or two.
Top top quality this boy, delighted for him and delighted for Arsenal.
I like the words he uses. Mindset, keeping head down and learn good habits. Definitely Martesacker influence there. Mindset is everything that age. How many times we have seen so many of these talented young players never making it because of lack of applications or distractions or bad advices.
Hope we continue to see more of these players with mindsets matching their talents.
Best of luck to him. Were Saka and ESR the last Hale Enders to make a proper break through to the first team squad? It feels like we must be over due some home grown lads getting a decent chance at some first team minutes.
though a couple of months older, Flo is the latest. He stayed within the youth system until 2020,
I thought of Flo but although we got a nice price and he’s playing at a high level, technically he didn’t break into our first team squad really. But that is splitting hairs.
I have high hopes for Reuell Walters to be the next one.
I feel that in Saka we have the blueprint to follow. I appreciate people develop at different rates, but to see how he is, how he carries himself, how beloved he is at the club, if I was a young player like Lewis Skelly I would look to him as inspiration in how to comport oneself.
Hopefully though not the blueprint to follow in terms of how the club has handled his minutes during his young career. Obviously MLS will dream about becoming so indispensible to the team that it would be as hard to leave him out as Saka and Wilshere (you could even argue ESR’s injury issues are a result of that) but if it does happen, I really hope we learn the lessons before it’s too late for these young players. I don’t care if this gets downvoted, needs to be said again and again until the club learns from it. I’d rather… Read more »
Can you spot Saka from the number of games versus other players in the 20-25 range?
2019–20 38—40—00—44—40—37—38—44–00
2020–21 46—41—46—35—47—49—58—37–00
2021–22 43—30—48—44—50—46—52—32–40
2022–23 48—53—49—42—50—43—55—56–47
2023–24 10—11—10—09—10—08—06—09–07
Not sure what youre trying to say with that but 20 is very, very different from 25. And it’s not as much about games but about minutes, which that info you shared there leaves me clueless about
Rubbish plenty of players have played lots minutes early in their careers and had long careers. Pretty much most of the greats have. Saka gets one injury and people throw their toys out of the pram. If he was an average player at a mid table club you wouldn’t be talking this way. Different players have different thresholds and therefore can do different things.
Howdi, I think you clearly know what I am trying to say given your comment on minutes…which in itself is a fair enough point…unsure of the data on this, I simply did a wiki compare, which suggests at least from this angle that Saka’s (22yo) data is not that different to Bellingham (20yo), Rashford (25yo), Vinicius Jnr (23yo), Musiala (20yo), Rice (24yo) Mbappe (24 yo), Haaland (23yo).
a) like I said, given Saka started this period aged 17 thats very different from Mbappe and Rashford who started it aged 19 or 20. b) some of these players had seasons with games played in the 30s which Saka hasnt had over the last 4 seasons c) like I said, minutes played is much more important than games and you havent given that info d) its too early to tell the trajectory of those players’ career and how it will affect them Sorry mate, you can always keep cherrypicking more anecdotal stuff to support this outdated approach, the science… Read more »
I simply did a quick compare and gave what I found. I don’t claim any great insight or that the figures show anything definitive. However… ‘Cherrypicking’ would be picking data that suited… not the case…just the data I found – none was rejected. ‘Anecdotal’ – you chose the wrong word. Reporting a factual number is not anecdotal. Of course it may not be a good case for what I claim…but that is a different matter. Point a) – Mbappe played 44 games at the age of 17/18. Rashford I think was 18, but played 32 games. Bellingham has been playing… Read more »
Quality.