Last season, Arsenal executives told Mikel Arteta to start using more academy players, and now Max Dowman is benefiting greatly from this.
The North London club were worried about the lack of a pathway to the first team for the younger players and spoke with the manager about trusting the youth.
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Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri initially both felt the benefits of this, and now Dowman is the latest academy star to make the breakthrough for the Gunners.
Hale End has produced many elite talents, including Bukayo Saka, Tony Adams, and Ashley Cole; therefore, it was so important that Arteta started to trust the academy more.
Arsenal executives told Mikel Arteta to start using more academy players
Arsenal executives told Mikel Arteta to start using more academy players, according to James Olley, helping to integrate the likes of Max Dowman, Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly.
Over the weekend, Dowman changed the game against Everton, highlighting the importance of trusting Arsenal’s academy.
But before that, Saka is the only Arsenal academy product to make it under Arteta, with the likes of Emile Smith-Rowe and Folarin Balogun being sold.
“I know that a couple of the senior executives here talked to him somewhere before last season about trying to trust the academy a little bit more and actually giving some of these kids a bit more of an opportunity,” Olley told ESPN FC.
“Some of the staff here felt as though there wasn’t that kind of direct path to the first team, that he wasn’t, while he took a keen interest in the academy, trusting those younger players.
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The Spanish coach wanted to sign players with greater experience and who can be drilled into playing his system.
Olley added: “He wanted players who were more of the finished article, who were more reliable, more consistent, more coachable, more drillable, if you like, rather than that kind of inconsistency of youth. The response to that was Lewis Skelly and Nwaneri getting more time.
“You’re right, it is significant that this season, Nwaneri has obviously gone out on loan to Marseille and Lewis-Skelly has kind of fallen off a cliff, really, in terms of his game time.”
Arsenal have many more young talents who could also emerge over the coming seasons, and it’s clear that Arteta must continue to stick by them.
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