Arsene Wenger may be copping a lot of abuse for his non-involvement in the transfer window but you can’t take one thing away from him – his commitment to blooding young players.
Many generations of players at the Emirates owe their game time and careers to the ‘club-first, youngsters-first’ policy of Wenger. Going with the same policy, the 17-year-old Jeff Reine-Adelaide is included in the Arsenal’s Champions League squad.
The teenage midfielder impressed everyone at the club in the pre-season with his performances and was penciled for bigger things. He dazzled the supporters at the Emirates Cup after joining the club from Lens in the summer. If all goes well for him, he could make his European debut for the Gunners and rubbing shoulders with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil.
Although the French midfielder hasn’t been involved with the senior Gunners side as yet, he has been selected in the Gunners’ ‘A’ list for the European competition. The club is also allowed to include seven youngsters in their ‘B’ list but Reine-Adelaide is ineligible for this list.
According to the UEFA website: “A player may be registered on List B if he is born on or after 1 January 1994 and has been eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday by the time he is registered with UEFA.”
Hector Bellerin has been included on the ‘B’ list to make room for Reine-Adelaide while Joel Campbell has also been named in the squad.
Reine-Adelaide made a significant impact in the Emirates Cup game against Wolfsburg. The youngster has been capped by France’s Under-17 side, but it looks like just the starting step for his move to the next levels.
There is optimism within the squad, the management and everyone around Emirates stadium that Reine-Adelaide will be a future star. Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud have already professed their acclaim of his dazzling skills while Wenger has already insisted that Reine-Adelaide has a lot of potential.
Arsenal are drawn in Group F alongside Bayern Munich, Olympiacos and Dinamo Zagreb in Champions League. With his quest for Premier League and the requirement to go further in the Champions League, Wenger is certain to employ the youngster at some point, and he has every reason to be believe he will be an instant star….
Don’t start putting unnecessary pressure on a 17year old…otherwise he’ll become big headed before he’s 22 and never reach his full potential…e.g Wilshere
It took Ramsey the better part of a season to find the confidence in his play that made him such a great prospect. 99% of fans were completely writing him off as ‘not Arsenal quality’ but he’s since won over the majority of the fan base and shown massive signs of improvement.
Coquelin was on loan in the lower leagues struggling to get a game and look at the quality he’s brought to the first-team unexpectedly at an older age than Wilshere now.
If you honestly can’t see a correlation between Wilshere’s progress and his unfortunate string of injuries I don’t think you’re looking hard enough. He’s really not at all a relevant example of a player who hype’s got the better of.
Wilshere isn’t big headed, he’s confident like every player with WC potential should be, and he doesn’t take shit from opponents like every player with winning mentality should be. Rooney had a similar personality at his age but you didn’t see his fans complaining. The only reason Wilshere struggles is because of his fitness, other than that he’s always proved his worth whenever he’s fit. 6 MOTM for England in 8 games, what does that tell you ? Sure the players in the squad aren’t Iniestas or DiMaria but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s able to remain consistent when he isn’t recovering from injury.
Please do not label this lad
an instant star. Just no.
A lad with serious potential yes.
Walcott Wilshere Chamberlain
all got labelled the next best thing
and years down the track they
are still developing.
But as you say we all sense the guy is
indeed special and “could” indeed go
on and be a very valuable signing.
But till then Petr Cech is our best signing
this term. A 33 yr old and a 17 yr old.
Who would have thought it 🙂
Your continuous criticism of Ox is madness. Of course he’s ‘still developing,’ if he was peaking at this age that really wouldn’t be a good thing.
Chamberlain has played
Premier League for 4 years
not 4 months. He has been an
English Senior level International for 3 years.
He has been paid 10 million pound.
He’s not a kid and should be producing a lot more.
I don’t see it that way…
I see a 22y.o. with bags of potential who’s at a level where he can contribute to the first-team. He’s so highly rated because anyone who’s bothered to look can see there’s the makings of an extremely good player there. He’s still at the stage in his career where he’s undoubtedly going to improve.
Young players have had disappointing seasons before. There’s also a lot of those players who put it behind them and go on to great things later in their career.
Whenever you talk of our players with the exception of maybe one or two it always seems to be ‘make or break.’ Well no, in by far and away the majority of cases it isn’t. And if it was, half our team would have been sold already…
Heck, people still bemoan Wenger for selling a lot of players who struggled a lot in their early career here.
Has a lot of potential, good pace and love taking shots, watching the highlights of him on youtube vs westham under 21s, he just kept on blowing by defenders, really one of the most interesting prospects for a long while
did u just say he Loves taking shots?…….this is why wenger would rarely play him……. Wenger Loves players running around with the ball at their feets playing the passing game even in a goal scoring position! …… All nonsensical
Unless he moves up front.
All the best to him! hoping he develops into a great player for arsenal fc in the near future!
Of course he is the best signing of the summer,
Not that we were spoilt for choice ?
As for Welbeck, Wenger now has the opportunity to welcome him back , Like a new signing, after the January window shuts…. So don’t expect any other new arrivals then either ?
And when he goes on to score 10 goals between January and April we’ll be told we don’t need a new striker 😀 😀
Knowing the kind of players we have in the team as of now it will be atleast 3-4 before he finally gets a regular place in the starting 11. I would rather be thinking whether to drop either Cazorla or Ramsey and who to play upfront ie Giroud or Walcott.
Arsenal+Game of thrones= die of heartattack.
lol this is a joke right? man, i know we are looking for any positives we can get right now after our “amazing” transfer window but this is hillarious, give the kid a break let him be
Could Arsene Wenger be the BEST SALE next summer?
;-D ;-D 😉
By the way… I have renounced my fake AKB membership.
Good riddance!
I sometimes get amused by some of the people on this website. In one vein they praise Man U for buying a 19 year old former Monaco player for over 35m pounds while in the other they criticize Wenger for including Adelaide in the squad and call Oxlade at 22 years still young. Now which is which? What kind of double standards are these?
The lad undoubtedly has huge talent and we wish him well but unfortunately he cannot in any way sort the present hopefully the future.lets not forget wilshere and the ox were big talents too but as of now they’re struggling to impress.we have waited for some of this fellas to deliver for more than a decade and to me dissappointing wld be an understatement. A proper tranfer policy plus the obvious talent in our academy wld be the best for everyone…
Wilshere and Ox would make it today in ANY first squad in EPL. Even injured, Wilshere is still better than Henderson. If all England squad would have the same spirit Jack is having Wales would not have overtake England in the FIFA ranking.
There are really human beings on planet earth that rate Henderson over Wilshere (serious question)?
Ozil is one of 4 world class players arsenal have say what you want but the rest of the world knows that barring some typical deluded “we love players who run around like headless chickens” (ramsey etc ) fans on here.
Ox Theo jack Ramsey all a bunch of overhyped injury prone typical arsenal type players, what makes me laff each of them have played for years but fans still use the same old excuse “they young developing ” bla bla bla
A few players who are in the similar age bracket hazard,de bryune,pogba,sterling etc all young but they HAVE actually developed into world class players.
When are fans going to face reality were a 3/4th team at best with the players at disposal due to clear favouritism by the wenger and shall remain that way. Just hope for another good cup run I say 😉
R u high ? Ramsey ALWAYS contributes whether out of form, on the wing, in the centre, or behind a striker. Him and Ozil are developing a serious partnership, look at all the goals created and you will notice both of them are involved nearly all of them. Jack alays proves you wrong when he’s fit but because he gets injured he’s overrated ? Maybe the fact he gets tackled 5 times every game should prove you that players do rate him ? Smh. I’m not even gonna bother talking for our no.14, Hazard’s best season is an average one for Walcott, that should open your eyes more.
It don’t matter because we won’t get past the last 16 yet again see that YET AGAIN
I think it’s time arsenal fans stopped going to the games until the club get a manager / coach to do a job. Merson said yesterday the same as I have been saying on here since the end of the season. How can we win the EPL with the same team that was 12 points shy. I want to win things and I don’t want the club to buy cups but you need to buy player and any player is available at the right price. Any one involved in football keeps saying we need a CB A DM A CF but AW just can’t see this
Right .pn ArsenalKid fantastic idea
He has yet to play a senior game. Seriously, chill out.
The reason he is in the “A List” is because it was pretty much between him or Bielik who’d take the last spot. It wasn’t like we moved Bellerin to the B List to accomodate him – Bellerin naturally fits into the B List and there is no negative for him to be there, so why wouldn’t you use the extra spot?
He needs to keep working hard and improve his game. The potential is there to be on the first team squad (even at a young age) but it’s all up to his dedication.