Arsenal’s Hale End academy boasts a vast amount of success, notably in recent years with Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe becoming two key cogs under Mikel Arteta.
The latter may have endured a rough two years with injury but the former is now one of the Premier League’s elite players.
Is it too far to suggest Saka is the finest product to come through at Arsenal? Perhaps not. At the age of 22, the young winger has scored 18 goals this season and also supplied 13 assists for his colleagues. Eight of those involvements have come in eight Champions League games too.
Rio Ferdinand doesn’t think he’s world-class yet, but we do. The dazzling Englishman has been superb for the Gunners.
Yet, he is following in the footsteps of some illustrious homegrown talent before him. Think Jack Wilshere who dominated Barcelona in the aforementioned Champions League as a teenager.
Injury cruelly robbed him of a fine career but for a player who broke through at a similar time – Serge Gnabry – he has certainly not been robbed.
Why Arsenal sold Serge Gnabry
Saka is perhaps the finest attacking player to come through the academy at Hale End since the German, who is now tearing it up at Bayern Munich.
However, had more opportunities presented themselves at a young age, perhaps he’d still be in north London.
Gnabry made his debut for the Gunners in 2012 during a League Cup tie against Coventry City, but following that, he only made another 17 first-team appearances under the tutelage of the great Arsene Wenger.
Why? Well, he did have to contend with the likes of Mesut Ozil, Aaron Ramsey, Alexis Sanchez and an in-form Theo Walcott for a place. That said, he did score one Premier League against Swansea City in the 2013/14 campaign.
That was about as good as it got for the German in London with an infamous loan spell with West Brom following. It’s safe to say Tony Pulis wasn’t a great fan at the time.
“I only had him for a couple of months. He has done fantastically well now, you have to hold your hands up, but at the time he was nowhere near it,” the ex-Baggies boss admitted.
“He was brought off in a reserve game. I wasn’t there but they played Aston Villa on a Monday night and the reserve coach, who is at Sheffield Wednesday with Darren (Moore) now, brought him off. He said he never tried a leg, he stood out wide, he flicked it up a few times and that was it.”
Well, Gnabry has made Arsenal and Pulis eat humble pie over the years. After joining Werder Bremen for just £4m, he unsurprisingly later signed for Bayern. He has scored 86 goals and registered 52 assists for the Bavarian outfit, won five Bundesliga trophies and tasted Champions League success.
Thus, he shouldn’t feel the need to justify his exit from the English capital, but he has tried to, once saying: “I was still confident I could’ve got in the team but I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to be fourth or fifth choice any longer. It was the hardest decision I had to make in football, leaving a club like Arsenal – the fans, the players – but to keep playing I had to take a step back and it was the right decision.”
It’s safe to say he may well be Wenger’s biggest failure in the transfer market through the years but could Edu and Co also be on the path to selling the wrong player again?
Arsenal's next Hale End departure
Selling academy talent is something all clubs have to do, including Arsenal. They did so only last summer when Folarin Balogun moved to Monaco following a successful loan stint in France.
The Gunners received a pretty impressive £35m fee for his services. Not bad for someone who only played ten senior matches in the famous red and white.
Well, who could be next? A certain Charlie Patino, scorer of a goal on his first-team debut against Sunderland as an 18-year-old.
The midfielder celebrated such an occasion as the “best day of his life” but similarly to Gnabry’s development at Arsenal, hasn’t had much success since.
Patino is currently enjoying a second loan spell in the EFL with Swansea City, having plied his trade with Blackpool last term. All in, the 2003-born talent has contributed to seven goals and eight assists in 70 outings. Those aren’t bad numbers for a deep-lying midfielder but he hasn’t captured the eye as much as some may have thought.
Sadly, with Arsenal’s midfielder rather packed at the moment, it doesn’t appear as though first-team opportunities will be forthcoming. Reports now even suggest that he is set to leave the Emirates Stadium behind for good in the summer with Arteta ready to greenlight an exit with Ethan Nwaneri waiting in the shadows to make his impact.
Such an eventuality is not a surprising one but it is a shame. After all, Patino has been billed as a star of tomorrow for a good few years now. Indeed, Arsenal’s head of scouting Sean O’Connor previously described him as the “best player who has ever walked through the doors at Hale End.”
That’s some statement but just goes to show the level of player Arsenal are willing to let go here. Indeed, it would hardly be a shock if in a few years time the Londoners are made to rue such a sale, just as they have with Gnabry.
Arsenal losing "superb" £60m gem could be as big a mistake as Gnabry
The incredible youngster could come back to haunt the Gunners.
ByJack Salveson HolmesApr 12, 2024