Of the host of Arsenal youngsters that will be leaving the club at the end of this month, one of them has already found a new club in Catalin Cirjan.
Having spent last season on loan at Rapid Bucharest, the attacking midfielder will remain in his homeland after signing for Dinamo Bucharest.
Cirjan’s loan spell last season didn’t go entirely to plan as he didn’t feature as prominently as he would have liked.
However, the skilful 21-year-old will be looking to show that he is capable of making a major impact at his new club.
Cirjan’s time at Arsenal was heavily impacted by injuries but when he first joined in 2019 he quickly established himself as one of the most talented prospects in the academy.
The youngster was involved with the first-team in training and in friendly matches and there were hopes that he would eventually be able to challenge for a place in the senior squad.
Unfortunately, Cirjan’s aforementioned injury issues meant that he wasn’t able to progress as quickly as hoped.
There were some encouraging signs in 2022 when, having signed a new contract, Cirjan returned from a lengthy injury lay-off and performed to a high standard for Arsenal at U21 level.
However, the time has now come for Cirjan to leave Arsenal and he will now be looking to show what he is capable of on the senior stage.
A player who has always worked very hard behind the scenes to ensure he is fully prepared for every game, Cirjan will hope to become a regular in the starting lineup for his new club.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
Good luck to him!
It’s not just stadiums we empty.
It’s academies too.
You seem to be in a very maudlin mood lately, ha
I can remember that a lot of us were quite excited about him, it’s a pity things didn’t work out as hoped. Injuries didn’t help his progress and he seemed to get a bit lost in the system. I’m glad he’s found a good club, and wish him everything of the best for a successful career.
We often underestimate how strong you have to be mentally to move to a foreign country as a kid and adapt to a completely new culture, try to make new friends etc while also needing to go through intense daily training and constantly needing to push yourself to perform and be in the right mental state to do so. Cesc talked about it recently in regards to Messi at Barca, and there we’re not even talking about needing to learn a new language. Cesc himself did it at Arsenal and a few others have done it successfully but those might… Read more »
I think of talent as getting you in door for an interview. The whole rest of your job application process and career development depends on your mentality from there. Players with virtuoso innate gifts like Messi and Yamal are vanishingly rare exceptions.
And even some of those supposedly virtuoso talents never have the careers their talent implies or thar everyone thinks they will at 16. Remember Bojan? Riquelme? Oscar? The original non-Arsenal Denilson? (Who my autocorrect wants to turn into venison) we even had two players like that in our academy in Jay Emanuel Thomas and Gideon Zelalem, both super gifted in very different ways
Not nice to the boy but whenever I see his name, the name of Sirhan Sirhan pops into my mind. Please accept that it tells more about my level of general knowledge than my age.
Definitely your age!