Arsenal starlet not good enough for Arsenal but can get a game at Barcelona! How does that work?

Arsene Wenger has history of stealing talented youngsters from under the nose of Barcelona and bringing them through the Arsenal Academy to become top class professionals. The first names that come to mind are Hector Bellerin, Jon Toral and Cesc Fabregas, but they all moved to Arsenal because of the reputation that Wenger has for bringing through youngsters into the first team.

But Marcus McGuane had been at Arsenal since he was six years old and had captained the Under 18’s and played for the U23’s a few times as well. And I’m not splitting hairs here, but he is considered to be a very talented Defensive Midfielder, which we are obviously well stocked up on but he left because he didn’t expect Wenger to give him any game time.

He said yesterday, after making his Barcelona debut against Espanyol: ‘I was getting frustrated by a lack of opportunities,’

‘It is good to train but I did not want my performance to plateau and stay at the same level. This step made sense.

‘I didn’t have any conversations with him [Wenger]. ‘I thought if I kept working hard, I would get opportunities. It didn’t come.

‘There’s no grudge but I felt the best thing was to find another way.

‘If you want to be at a place to develop and get first-team football, maybe you have to look elsewhere than Arsenal.’

So what happened to Wenger’s pòlicy of bringing through talented youngsters from the Academy into the Arsenal first team? It is a very sad state of affairs that an 18 year-old moves to a massive club like Barcelona and expect to get more chances than he would at Arsenal. Oh my, how things have changed. And not neccesarily for the better!

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19 Comments

  1. Arsenal are in a mess,more youngsters will leave if the situation doesn’t change.
    Anyway I want us to lose the Watford game just to oust wenger.
    It is better to sacrifice something now for the sake of the club’s healthy longterm run.

    1. Are you dreaming? Which Board are you having in mind? Arsenal?
      Even if we lose 0 – 10 you’ll still have to make do with Wenger till the end of the season ( or even beyond). So we better win so that we can at least talk when fans of other clubs are talking.

    2. Hayzed: Yesterday West Ham embarrassed themselves, English football and damaged West Ham’s chances of beating the relegation drop. I am also a “Wenger out” fan but I hope similarly minded fans will exhibit a greater degree of decorum than the West Ham fans yesterday.

      I hope we win the Europa league and Wenger decides to leave on a high (at the end of this season), however at no stage do I want (or see any profit in) my team losing.

  2. Its not just Arsenal where youngsters have a hard time getting game time. Man City, Liverpool, Man utd , Chelsea are no difference, if it werent for injuries, most youngsters wont play unless you are as good as Rashford, Ousmane Dembele (even those guys arent guaranteed a spot).

    EPL is so competitive, playing young talent regurarly is so risky, especially hwen you have first team players at their peak who also wants to play.

    1. Well said. Your considered comment puts all the other irrational and knee-jerk comments into perspective ?. The only reason why this guy is a story is because he has gone to Barcelona. For every player that we have sold to Barcelona, there are 100 that have gone to other clubs that fans never have any problem with (or hear about again).

    2. I take your point but I think that what hurts here is that we’ve lost a player who has shown massive potential in the one role that most fans have been screaming out for a decade. And within three months he is banging on the door of arguably the best team in the world. That stings.

  3. I think our talent spotting team need sacking when we read were buying young players from all over the worldfor the future and then read Barcelona sign one of our ownyoungsters and a few weeks later is pleying for their first team surely the alarmbells should have starting ringing why they where looking at our youngster and wanted to sign him

    1. Why do you think Sanllehi and Sven Mislinat brought in and our British scouts sacked? Our British scouts sucks since the time of the “British Experiment” when they bought players like Jenkinson, Gibbs, Walcott, etc, etc … Finally Wenger gave up and discard his unwavering loyalty (to all things British) done a Brexit and going back to his roots ….. recruiting continental staff and players.

      1. No, they were all scouted and signed as potential future stars. They didn’t progress, that’s not scouting that’s lots of things. Funny that you think Wenger discarded his wavering loyalty to all things British because he loves pound sterling still.

    1. Exactly, he’s made one substitute appearance for the 1st eleven, coming on in the Catalan Super Cup Final for about 10 minutes.

      He’s made 4 appearances for the Barca’ B team, hardly the big time.

      He also claims he never spoke to Wenger, do you believe that when he’s made 2 appearances in the Europa League as a substitute, he’s just another one who likes to knock Arsenal and has ideas above his station.

      Do I care that he’s gone, not with an attitude like that, I don’t.

      1. Yep that’s right, don’t need a player who has ambition anywhere near our first team thank you very much.

  4. This is a totally mis-leading headline.The Lad has made (I am led to understand) two appearances starting for Barcelona B and two substitute appearances.
    The so called first team appearance was a CATALAN Cup Competition not officially recognised be the Spanish League.
    In regards our young players leaving the Academy and furthering their careers elsewhere,how many can you name that have left and achieved success elsewhere?Exactly.NONE. Don’t you believe this is to do with the quality of the players in the Youth Set Up?

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