Arsenal winger Alex Iwobi has revealed he is learning every day simply by watching Mesut Ozil during training.
The 19 year-old is enjoying his breakthrough season this term, moving ahead of Theo Walcott and Joel Campbell in the pecking order in recent weeks.
Iwobi has started his club’s last four matches, including the all-important Champions League match against Barcelona, highlighting the belief that manager Arsene Wenger has in the youngster.
He is fast becoming a fans favourite, and with another goal and an assist during yesterday’s league tie against Watford, he looks likely to be just that for many years to come.
Alex Iwobi has now moved to credit team-mate Mesut Ozil for helping him to learn how to play at the highest level, revealing he watches him in training in order to learn.
He said: “Where as I’m in the same position as him, I’m learning each day how to play, how he gets a lot of space and assists his goals and gets goals.
“Each day at training he’s helping me and I’m learning from him just by watching him.”
The Nigeria international has also revealed that he is close friends with Danny Welbeck, and that he is enjoying working alongside him within the first-team.
Iwobi added: “I just have to hope the boss gives me another chance, we’ll see how it goes.
“But yeah, [Danny and I] are forming a good bond and he’s helping me. We’re good friends off the pitch as well so it’s good to be on the pitch with him.”
It’s so refreshing to see the youngster hit the ground running, and Iwobi and Welbeck appear to be bringing the best out in each other.
Iwobi’s emergence highlight’s the need to keep Arsene Wenger in his role as boss, as no other manager has a track record of moulding these young players into first-team stars. Try and name another Premier League boss who can boast a similar success in promoting youth?
Akpom will soon be coming home…
Move aside Iwobi!
Hmmmm. Move aside Iwobi?
Are you talking about form or how long a time they have spent in the time?
Hector B. and Iwobi are the young lads we can rely on.
Iwobi and Bellerin are showing that Wenger’s youth policy does work sometimes, but I jusy wish the academy would bring through some top class strikers for a change. Have we ever produced even one?
Add Coquelin, Wilshere, Gibbs, Ramsey, Ox to that list along with the average non heard of players he bought that he moulded/integrated into 1st team players from nobodies like Boss, Nacho, Campbell & Elneny! Hes got an eye for talent & making average players good enough for the 1st team by the way he trains & integrates them into the team. Hes did this quite alot over his tenure in charge, look at the invincibles and likes of Nasri, Fabregas & Van Persie. Nobody better than him than that.
Akpom Maybe but Iwobi could be the gem u hope for as a quality forward coming through our Academy into the 1st team, and hes hit the ground running also.
Andy Cole
That’s why players are loaned now, so players who are late developers can be brought back.
It’s great to see youngsters like Iwobi emerge from the academy. He’s been with us since he was 9, hope he’s gonna be here for a long while and flourish at Arsenal. OT: Has anybody heard anything of Serge Gnabry? How’s he doing at West Brom and all? Looking forward to his assessment. He was a real talent.
Gnarbry’s case is weird. He has talent but he only had 1 app for West Brom and might as well have just stayed with us
Iwobi is definitely using his time well,delivering the goals and assists,my only worry is that he may not be allowed to develop fully at Arsenal,just imagine when Ox,Ramsey,wilshere etc are all back fit? He would probably be loaned out
Iwobi has not been loaned out for a reason, he himself said he was thinking about asking for a loan but Arsene told him no because he want’s him to train with our first team and learn the Arsenal way. He must have thought how training with the first team of Arsenal will be better than playing lower down as were else in England can he go that will resemble Arsenals forward play.