The 20 year-old Chuba Akpom was a prolific striker for Arsenal in the youth levels before Arsene Wenger decided to promote him to the Gunners first team towards the end of last season. Le Prof announced in this pre-season that Akpom would not be going out on loan but when the Frenchman changed his mind and sent him off to Hull, we all thought that this meant Wenger would be bringing in a new hitman before the end of the transfer window.
We all know how that worked out, but the question remains; Why did Wenger change his mind? We certainly can’t say that Steve Bruce has not persevered with Akpom. The youngster has played 22 times already this season, but sadly he failed to live up to his promise and has only scored three goals in that time. In fact he has made more headlines for his sulking and disciplinary problems that he has for his footballing talents.
Earlier this month, Arsenal.com did a feature on Akpom and Isaac Hayden, who is also on loan at Hull, and something struck me as strange in his short interview. He was talking about the move up North and he said; “It does feel a bit like a different country up here,”
“It’s always cold, you miss the girlfriend, mum and dad, and the comforts of being at home, but you just have to get on with it and develop a thick skin. The most difficult thing for me is the cooking and the cleaning.
“When you’ve cooked and then you see all the mess that you’ve made, you realise you have to wash everything up. The dishwasher I have at my house here is broken and they didn’t tell me that before I moved in, so I was buzzing about my dishwasher but I can’t even use it!”
Do you see why that worries me? Here is footballer earning at the very least 10,000 Pounds a week, and he has lived in a house for six months but hasn’t picked up the phone to get someone to repair his dishwasher, or even get a brand new one delivered and fitted, which would cost at the most 5% of his weekly wage…
I know that has no bearing on his footballing skills but it does show a measure of how organized he is. But for a striker with his promise at all youth levels not to be able to make an impression in the Championship with a team aiming for automatic promotion, ia big worry. Does anyone still think that he could step up to the Premiership with Arsenal one day?