By Mac Johnson (Deputy Editor)
Arsenal's Hale End academy is among the finest in England, if not the world. The facilities on Wadham Road have been a proving ground for many of Arsenal's greatest players—Liam Brady, David Rocastle, Tony Adams, Ray Parlour, and Cesc Fabregas, to name a few. It has also given rise to Arsenal's biggest current superstar in Bukayo Saka.
During Arsene Wenger's legendary tenure, he dedicated serious time into fostering a pipeline from the academy to the first team, which brought inspiration to two generations of Arsenal fans. The integration of youth remains an intrinsic element of Arsenal's culture. The spirit imbued in Hale End has had a marked impact on the community which supports the Club, as many young, London-based players see it as a dream destination to growing their footballing aspirations.
However, in recent weeks and months, I have witnessed a palpable discontent among Arsenal fans, centered around our current manager's use of academy players. Mikel Arteta, who most consider poised to begin a dynasty at Arsenal, has faced serious backlash online for his apparent and supposed disdain towards elevating younger faces into a squad still hemmed with grizzled, subpar veterans.
The numbers are clear in a certain regard—Arteta is often reticent to hand minutes to youth prospects, certainly—but I'm aiming to unpack more than just statistics and records. I will seek to identify why Arteta might not offer debuts to Hale End prospects, if his record is in fact so damning as some might suggest, and what the purpose of an academy is, in the modern game.
A Quick Refresher Course
For those not invested in this topic, I wanted to give a quick summary of the debate. Among the members of their academy, Arsenal have a number of budding stars, with four often at the center of both inquest and ire involving Arteta.
At the back, Hale End has produced Reuell Walters (19) and Lino Sousa (18), who play on the right and left of the back line specifically. The requests for their debuts have mounted as Arsenal continue to face an injury crisis at the back, with Jurrien Timber, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Takehiro Tomiyasu are all unfit, and Benjamin White playing with a long-term hamstring problem.
And in the midfield, Arsenal's academy have proffered the services of Myles Lewis-Skelly (17), who typically operates as a midfielder or winger on the left flank, and Ethan Nwaneri (16), whose best moments, including a record-breaking cameo for Arsenal's first team against Brentford at the tender age of 15, have come as a No. 8 or No. 10. Their names have been floated as a possible solution to fix Arsenal's slightly dysfunctional left side.
Questions were first raised during Arsenal's UCL draw with PSV Eindhoven, where players like Cedric Soares and Mohamed Elneny, both of whom are out of favor, form, and fitness and who will certainly not have a future at the club come June, were preferred. Arsenal had already topped their group in that moment, and people have oft suggested that Arteta could have handed out debuts to those on the up-and-up. As Arsenal have dipped in form in the month since, more questions have been asked about youth participation. Answers have not been provided as yet.
Analyzing Arteta's Management
Though the criticisms over his supposed spurning of Hale End are growing, I think that Arteta has bigger fish to fry. He rarely manages to give adequate minutes to players like Jakub Kiwior, Reiss Nelson, and Emile Smith Rowe, who should reasonably take precedence over youth prospects. Fabio Vieira's name is also on that list, though injuries have scuppered that chance rather neatly.
Furthermore, Arteta has a vantage point that we plebeian fans lack. Arsenal's depth is lacking, certainly, but we don't have the advantage of watching the young players in training every day. At a certain point, I trust Arteta's familiarity with the players he's bound to select. Though playing youth has elements of fun and risk, that's the antithesis of Arteta's ethos as a manager.
That's not to say Arteta is all pragmatism, all the time. Rather, Hale End's current rostrum of prospects are physically and technically talented, but likely lack the tactical nous and decision making that can only come with the experience they are simply too young to have garnered. Arteta will be much more likely to trust those who he believes will make the right decisions in the right moments.
And finally, I want to recognize that we do not exist under the maleficent shadow of Unai Emery's Arsenal anymore. Many of the folks demanding for youth integration are doing so on the basis that under Emery, players like Saka, Joe Willock, and Eddie Nketiah provided the spark that ignited some of our best moments, and that our current crop of youngsters should be relied upon to do the same.
Though I don't agree with the assertion that Emery was any better than Arteta at integrating youth, he was forced to play young players out of necessity. I would argue that this necessity has mostly faded, even despite injuries at key positions. Only in moments like a UCL dead rubber should youth ever be called upon—and for a manager like Arteta, for whom winning is everything, I'm not sure it should be expected.
What about Arteta's track record?
People act as if Arteta is a horrendous manager of youth because he purchased players during the summer window. I believe that more questions would be asked if, say, Arsenal were relying on Reuell Walters to drive a title challenge rather than signing Jurrien Timber, or trusted a player like Charlie Patino in the midfield rather than recruiting somebody of Kai Havertz's profile. Potential is important, but it's only potential until proven otherwise.
Folks also like to compare him to other top managers like Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. It's nearly impossible to ignore the success of Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold, but I would argue that world-class talents tend to shine through—Bukayo Saka being the operative example.
More recently, we've seen profiles like Rico Lewis, Oscar Bobb—who I've just watched score the winner against Newcastle—and Jarrell Quansah, who has been deputizing for Virgil Van Dijk, come into the fold with no small success. But they are players required to fill gaps in a squad, gaps Arsenal simply don't have to deal with on the same level. We are in a process of squad-building that does not have the luxury of prior success, and thereby the luxury of integrating youth as freely as some might like.
I might also question how many City and Liverpool talents have gone by the wayside in recent years? How many talents, like Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia—both now contracted to Chelsea—and the Williams brothers at Liverpool, have gone on to find success elsewhere?
Compare that to Arteta's track record. His most notable sales include Flo Balogun, now playing a quite average role for AS Monaco; Omari Hutchinson, who can't even make the bench at Chelsea; Matt Smith, who can't buy a consistent place for Wigan Athletic. He's been right at every turn. I don't want to disparage our academy, but I would simply argue that we are in the midst of two rather spectacular generations—one which has either been sold on or integrated into the first team, and another which is climbing to the fore but has not yet reached a point of integration.
The only other question is, does Arteta risk losing these players by not integrating them? Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly have both recently been given long-term deals, and rumors are swirling around a new deal for Walters. At a certain point, I would suggest that all of the hullabaloo is a bit empty—again, I trust this club to do whatever necessary to retain the players who we think will have an impact in the future.
Simply, I believe Arteta is being criticized for something that isn't necessarily his problem. And that brings me onto the third issue.
The purpose of a football academy
Hale End is, in part, such a well-renowned academy because of its hereditary pipeline for promoting players. As such, fans might expect such an academy to provide a consistent conveyor belt of talent that forms the majority of a squad. But I'm here to apologize to all of the people that might believe that. It's just not realistic.
Successful clubs tend to rely on purchasing players and filling gaps in squads external to the players they produce through their respective academies. There's no two ways about it. And for what's more, the nature of experimentation necessary in integrating a high volume of youth prospects is not conducive to a winning culture. Just ask Chelsea.
At a certain point, academies exist as a bolster to clubs, rather than the other way around. Arsenal's academy exists to provide heaps of potential, but Arteta is the manager of Arsenal—he does not need to pay service in any way to Hale End, more than he already does by supporting its success as an institution. He has invested heavily in its success during his tenure as manager, and much more cannot be expected!
And with the current importance of Financial Fair Play, the sale of academy prospects is often a perfect bolster to a team's financial viability. The sale of youth players may indeed become a necessity if Arsenal are to reach financial parity with their competitors. As the club continues to grow its squad and compete at loftier levels, youth integration will be a sought-after commodity, but one that might not have the follow through fans expect.
And so, to answer the title of this article, I do not believe that Arteta hates Hale End. Rather, he is tasked with coaching the first team and managing the affairs of the club, and will have both short-term and long-term goals for that process. A process which, not to beat a dead horse over the past few seasons, I believe we should trust.
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