This season, the outstanding maturity of Bukayo Saka or Emile Smith Rowe has given Arsenal fans the right to once again be proud of the club’s famous training facility. Not only that, this is also a story about the faith, perseverance and luck of young potential talents.
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Fierce competition for young talents
As someone who received a lot of expectations in the academy environment, Bukayo Saka made many members of the team’s leadership team unable to even believe that they owned such an excellent player. Even though he is not yet in his teenage years, every time he sees Saka playing with players his own age, people feel as if he is playing football with boys much younger than him.
“I went with him to Florida for an U14 tournament. He’s stronger and faster than everyone else. There was even a time when Saka even kicked the opponent’s net,” Andries Jonker – former director of the Arsenal academy – recalled.
Bukayo Saka’s qualities are undeniable, but as with any young talent, there are always concerns about the English player’s development direction. There is even an opinion that Saka plays football better than others because he is “older than his age” and not really because of his ability with the ball.
Mr. Jonker continued: “Many people only look at the physical advantage at the age of 14 to doubt Saka’s talent. There were many questions that were asked at that time but no one could give an answer. But these doubts arise simply because he is too good. For me, it is impossible to judge a boy just because he is faster and stronger than other teammates.”
Up to now, it can be affirmed that Bukayo Saka has given answers to all those doubts. At the age of 19, Saka has become one of Arsenal’s most important players, a national player, a notable name for every scout of the world’s biggest clubs and a future star. of the Premier League.
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Bukayo Saka’s growth is coach Mikel Arteta’s success and is the result of a process that required a lot of effort and thought lasting nearly 10 years. But it’s not just Saka. Emile Smith Rowe is also an elite product of the Arsenal youth training system. This season, both Saka and Smith Rowe have played great on the Gunners’ attack.
At the ages of 19 and 20, both Saka and Smith Rowe have a long, bright future ahead of them. They are also two of what is considered “the most talented group of young players in Arsenal history”. Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah or Ainsley Maitland-Niles are all part of head coach Mikel Arteta’s team development plan. Each person is used in a different phase of the season and has made a significant contribution to the club.
Having a “homegrown” player in the club’s main squad is valuable, but at this time, Arsenal has up to 6 players who graduated from the academy on the first team roster. This is truly a proud achievement for Hale End Academy and for the scouts who have worked hard to find young talent since those boys were not yet 10 years old.
The biggest challenge: retaining future stars
There are not many cities in the world with as much football talent as London and in some areas, the competition for young players is as intense as the race for the national championship. Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, West Ham, Fulham and Crystal Palace are 6 teams that always want to own the best quality young talents. The scope of their “hunting” is also not limited to certain areas.
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A simple example: Saka, Smith Rowe, Nelson and Nketiah are all playing for Arsenal but none of them are from North London. Saka was born in Ealing (West London), Smith Rowe in Croydon (South London), Nelson in Walworth (South London) and Nketiah is from Lewisham (South London). However, they all have the same destination: Arsenal’s Hale End academy.
Steve Morrow, who served as head of the Arsenal academy’s scouting system, said: “The competition between clubs in London is extremely fierce. The most difficult is probably the U12 and U9 groups because U9 is the age when boys start being recruited into the academy. Owning a player since he was young also means that the club will have more opportunities to stick with this player in the future. The scouts’ job is to find the boys with the greatest potential and they need to be recognized for the effort they put in.”
When he first started his football career, Saka was only 8 years old, Nelson was 9 years old and Smith Rowe was only 10 years old. Maitland-Niles and Willock even came to Hale End academy before that. Nketiah came later when he was 14 years old, but that was when the player left Chelsea’s football academy.
“Things are a bit chaotic,” Mr. Morrow continued. “If a young player feels that a club’s academy is not the best place for him, then we have to accept that.”
At Arsenal, youth training inherits many advantages from what coach Arsene Wenger left behind. Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs or Aaron Ramsey are concrete examples of the fact that every young talent will be given the opportunity to prove and develop themselves at Arsenal.
Owning a potential player is difficult, keeping them at the club is even more difficult. Arsenal fans will not be happy to mention this when they have seen the team’s stars leave one after another. And perhaps not many people know that Emile Smith Rowe was able to wear the Tottenham shirt to face Arsenal in the North London derby not long ago.
David Webb – Tottenham’s head of young talent discovery – shared: “Smith Rowe played against us in the U18 tournament and he was extremely outstanding in the role of a number 10. The ability to move without the ball and the frequency of his activities is also very impressive. We tried to sign Smith Rowe before he accepted the Arsenal scholarship but were unsuccessful. At that time, Smith Rowe was the perfect player for coach Mauricio Pochettino’s playing style and even though he was only 16 years old, we knew that it wouldn’t take long for Smith Rowe to be named in the first team.”
Not only receiving attention from domestic clubs, Smith Rowe and many other players of the same age in English football also attract attention from foreign clubs. Among them, Jadon Sancho has become one of the Bundesliga’s biggest stars.
“Players will always hear stories behind the scenes, especially when they join the national team,” said Steve Morrow. “That was the case with Smith Rowe when he was called up to England U17. Not only Smith Rowe but most of the players from that group received a lot of attention. We need to make sure these players feel they are an important part of the team. Only then will they not want to leave.”
Besides, the “generation” factor also plays a huge role in retaining a young player. In the case of Arsenal, when Reiss Nelson rejected offers from many other clubs, his teammates of the same age quickly did the same.
“Here, we create a football environment that helps these boys feel most comfortable,” said Mr. Andries Jonker, “They understand our beliefs and do not want to leave. When they heard that Reiss (Nelson), Emile (Smith Rowe) and Bukayo (Saka) were all staying, they understood that everyone would have a chance on this team. Reiss told me that he had only one dream when he was young, which was to play football at the Emirates. These guys do everything for Arsenal and they have the same goal, which is to succeed with Arsenal.”
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Failure or success
Despite all the efforts of the coaching team, it is still inevitable that the players are determined to leave the club. Furthermore, moving to a new team is also an opportunity for a player to “change his luck”. Josh Dasilva is shining at Brentford after refusing to extend his contract with Arsenal. Xavier Amaechi also decided to leave Emirates to join Hamburg 2 years ago. Folarin Balogun is still in the process of developing, but he will also leave Arsenal on a free transfer next summer.
The majority of young players decide to leave because they do not see a clear opportunity to play in the first team after graduating from the academy. But that is also the “first life” challenge that every player must face. They will leave the academy and have to fight for themselves in the extremely harsh professional football environment. And that is also the final test for the club to make sure whether a young player can truly mature or not. And Bukayo Saka is a typical case of Arsenal.
“Physically, Bukayo (Saka) always looks ready,” Steve Morrow shared, “I can see his technical qualities and surprising composure, especially when having to tackle in a narrow space, right in the first training session he participated in with the first team. Playing alongside good players helps Saka improve even more. And he showed his ability to exist in a professional environment. I was also surprised that it didn’t take him long to integrate and maintain his performance at the highest level.”
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Emile Smith Rowe’s development path is somewhat different from Bukayo Saka. After being promoted to the first team by coach Unai Emery and scoring 3 goals, the player born in 2000 went to RB Leipzig and Huddersfield Town respectively on loan contracts.
In fact, Smith Rowe had many more attractive options, but he chose to join a club facing many difficulties in the lower division. David Webb, who failed to bring Emile Smith Rowe back to Tottenham, fully supported this decision.
“Huddersfield was the perfect place for Emile to challenge himself,” said the former head of scouting at Tottenham Hotspur. “It was an opportunity for him to fend for himself and he did very well. Emile was a shy guy and didn’t really have much influence in the dressing room but he did everything he could to fit in. He is willing to fight to survive and for a greater purpose.”
Panorama
One of the most elite and successful products of Arsenal’s youth academy in recent years is Alex Iwobi. The quality of an academy is not only judged by a player’s contributions to that team but also in many other ways. The clearest proof is the amount of more than 30 million pounds that Arsenal received from the sale of Iwobi to Everton.
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It would not be surprising if Joe Willock or Maitland-Niles also follow Alex Iwobi’s path this summer. Arsenal is currently in need of money to overcome financial difficulties and adult players from the Hale End academy are an opportunity for them to make a profit.
According to former academy director Andries Jonker, he and former CEO Ivan Gazidis had an open conversation when he first took office seven years ago. At that time, Jonker and Gazidis agreed on a big plan, a strategic vision for Arsenal in the future.
“There are only two big clubs in Europe that have tradition in both youth training and first team achievements, which are Barcelona and Ajax Amsterdam. Even if the players of these two teams wear a different shirt color, you will still immediately recognize that it is Barca and Ajax when looking at the way they play football. I think Arsenal can absolutely become the third club to follow that direction of development. Ivan told me that Arsenal would never win the title with the 11 players they bought but could win if we created half a quality squad ourselves. If we take the players who graduate from the academy as the foundation and then add quality factors, we can be successful for a long time with the core still being Arsenal,” Mr. Andries Jonker concluded.
