Arsenal complete first signing after latest change in transfer strategy ahead of summer

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It recently emerged that Arsenal were set to implement a new transfer strategy this summer to put extra emphasis on signing elite young talents for the academy sides.

Arsenal want to follow Manchester City and Liverpool in signing top young talents to join the academy, with the intention of either progressing to the first team or being sold for a healthy profit.

The club have now completed their first signing as part of this strategy, with young defender Brayden Clarke joining from Wolves as a scholar, heading straight into the under-18 side.

He went straight into Jack Wilshere’s starting XI for today’s under-18 match against Crystal Palace, with Arsenal winning with an astonishing scoreline of 8-3.

Arsenal confirm Brayden Clarke signing

Arsenal have now confirmed the addition of Clarke, who is a 16-year-old centre-back, and Wilshere was impressed with him after his debut, which came at very short notice.

“Talk about personality and courage to play, the first time he trained with us was on Thursday,” Wilshere stated.

“He trained yesterday and played today 90 minutes. We weren’t sure if he’d get through the game so I asked him around 60 minutes how he was and he said ‘yeah I’m fine.’

“The way he understood our style after only two days is credit to him. He’s very good technically, can manage the ball and look after the ball and I thought against Palace you’ve got to defend direct play and he did that really well.”

Arsenal begin new transfer strategy

Clarke has joined as a teenager who was part of the Wales under-17 side, and is highly rated at youth level.

His addition will help increase the quality of the academy sides, as well as giving him the opportunity to play at a higher youth level than he may have been offered before.

Per Mertesacker and Wilshere will now be tasked with bringing in further additions to the academy sides, before then attempting to help these top young talents develop well, and the early signs surrounding Clarke are very encouraging.

Whilst there are several elite talents coming through such as Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Arteta did admit that some of the academy stars were not yet ready to be considered for first-team action, and improving the quality around them should lead to a long-term gain in this regard.