Arsenal U19s’ hopes of progressing to the next stage of the UEFA Youth League suffered another blow yesterday as they were beaten 4-1 away to Inter Milan.
The young Gunners went into the game having won one of their first three fixtures and are now in 28th place in the table.
Osman Kamara, who made his return from injury as a substitute, was on the scoresheet for Max Porter’s side, but Arsenal’s task was made harder by the dismissal of defender Maldini Kacurri for two bookable offences.
There were some positives to take from the game, with 14-year-old Max Dowman continuing to impress, but there is a serious danger that Arsenal’s involvement in the competition could come to an early end again.
One of the main problems appears to be that some of the players don’t play together regularly, with the team being a mixture of U21 and U18 players, which can lead to a lack of cohesion.
Perhaps arranging some friendlies at that level could help to improve matters but Arsenal’s style of play at youth level also appears to be less effective on the European stage than it is domestically.
There are two matches in the league phase remaining for Arsenal – away to Sporting and at home to Monaco. Arsenal have to finish in the top 22 places to avoid being eliminated at this stage.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
Fuck me. This week can get set itself on fire and get in the bin. What a shit show. I am a keen follower of English rugby and cricket as well as an Arsenal fan. My wife is an American democrat so we were both heavily invested in the election (and basic human decency). So far in the space of 5 days I’ve had to endure a painful last minute loss in the rugby to NZ, a battering in the cricket against as poor West Indies side, 2 pretty pathetic Arsenal losses and a gross, orange rapey racist sweeping a… Read more »
I’m pretty sure the last bit is the worst by a country mile…
Yeh but I have to be carefully because there are many people on the internet who don’t agree.
The academy record in Europe is truly abysmal and a club of our standing should be embarrassed
Thanks for the article Jeorge. Raised two thoughts from me. First, is the mix and match of U18 and U21 players an issue for other clubs too? I wonder if basically playing your U18 team (unless you have a particularly young U21 squad) might help the team?
And second, interesting on the style of play being more suited domestically. Wondered what the specifics of that were – like what is the current style of play and what types of change might make it work better in Europe.
Top tier of youth football in Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and (up until this season) Italy is U-19 as opposed to our U-18 PL and PL2 (U21) set up, so it’s not really an issue for other teams on the continent. The other English teams have coped better, but not massively – no PL Academy side in the to 12 right now.
I think playing the U18s might be beneficial in some aspects but the defence might be a bit more vulnerable.
In terms of the style of play, they play quite an open attacking style which doesn’t always work in Europe against teams that are resilient defensively and are a threat on the counter-attack.
Thanks Jeorge and David Hillier’s luggage, interesting and useful.