Myles Lewis-Skelly’s season at Arsenal has been far more difficult than many expected.
After impressing heavily last term, there was a belief that the teenager would become a regular part of Mikel Arteta’s plans this season.
Instead, Lewis-Skelly struggled for consistent game time and fell behind both Riccardo Calafiori and Piero Hincapie in the pecking order.
That would have been incredibly frustrating for a young player who showed so much promise, but Arteta reportedly kept pushing him behind the scenes.
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Incredible in the midfield against Fulham
Mikel Arteta kept telling Myles Lewis-Skelly to improve while he was dropped
Myles Lewis-Skelly’s lack of opportunities this season has raised plenty of questions about his long-term future at Arsenal.
The teenager has barely started in the Premier League despite looking extremely promising whenever he has played.
For many young players, that sort of situation can quickly become discouraging.
However, Arteta reportedly made it clear to Lewis-Skelly that he still believed in him and viewed him as an important part of the squad.
The Arsenal manager is understood to have repeatedly told the youngster that his time would come eventually.
At the same time, Arteta also demanded more from him behind the scenes.
Rather than allowing Lewis-Skelly to become comfortable after his breakthrough last season, the Arsenal boss reportedly pushed him hard to continue improving every aspect of his game.
Instead of sulking over his reduced role, Lewis-Skelly accepted the challenge and kept working.
That mentality is exactly why Arsenal still view him as one of the brightest talents at the club.
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Arteta explains how he got Lewis-Skelly onboard after dropping him
Arteta has now opened up on how difficult the situation was for Lewis-Skelly mentally after his breakthrough season.
The Arsenal boss explained that the teenager had to experience the emotional side of football, especially after suddenly going from being one of the club’s breakout stars to not starting regularly.
Arteta also admitted that he needed multiple conversations to convince Lewis-Skelly to fully understand the reasoning behind his reduced game time.
He said, as per Arsenal.com: “I need to push Myles Lewis-Skelly hard, to understand how he’s feeling.
“He’s a boy who was playing with the under-18s, under-21s, sometimes he wasn’t even playing, he was playing in a different position.
“He comes in, he comes through, he plays in a completely different position that he’s ever played before, he’s exceptional, everybody’s talking about him, he goes to the national team.
“He comes back from pre-season, and then he starts to realise that maybe he’s not going to be a starter.
“So you need to go through those emotions, not only you, but the people next to you as well, the people that are giving you advice, and you have to navigate through that, and that’s not easy, I understand that.
“It’s easy when it goes so well for you, but when it goes the other way, the temptation is going to start to point to people, and I need to understand that, and I need to guide him, and I need to give him my perspective, the reasons why he wasn’t playing that much, and he took it on board.
“Not the first one, after three or four times, I think he realised, OK, I think if it’s not this way, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
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