As I wrote earlier today, Mikel Arteta is keen to see more academy players promoted to the Arsenal first team, and it would appear that he has chosen another one who has been seen training with the first team squad this week.
Arteta revealed that Takehero Tomiyasu will not be available again after sustaining another calf strain before last weeks game against Wolves, so it is little surprise that he should promote an established right-back from the academy, considering there is no ready-made back up to Cedric Soares in the squad without a change of formation.
The lucky youngster is Zak Swanson, who joined the club at just six years of age. He only signed his first professional contract with the Gunners just two years ago, and now aged 21 it is probably about time we was given a chance to see if he can make it at Arsenal.
🗣 “Zak’s one of those players that plays at 7/10 every week and you know what you’re going to get from him. Step by step he’s becoming a more polished player week in week out.”
The boss was full of praise for @ZakSwanson_3 following his performance against @ManCityAcademy 👏 pic.twitter.com/0PtBZKYSmb
— Arsenal Academy (@ArsenalAcademy) October 31, 2019
God forbid that Cedric gets injured as well, but it would nice for Arteta to give Swanson a run out if we are comfortably winning the game. If we don’t actually try our academy players now and again, how will we ever know how they will pan out?
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Give him a try, would love to see more academy player step up to first team
Would love to see him, as far as we are getting good results.
We ar looking@notingham forest”spence” yet a 21yo gunner is not worth upgrading.SALIBA is out there strong on the game.bring him back to the team and stop wasting money.