Arsenal tie down first meaningful signing!
Arsenal have finally made their first major signing of the season.
No not the men, the women!
Lifelong Arsenal fan and once a Junior Gunner, Leah Williamson, has signed a contract extension at the club.
Leah first joined the club when she was nine years old and progressing through our academy she made her first-team debut in 2014. She is now a solid part of the first team and a full England international too.
Speaking to arsenal.com Leah said: “I’ve signed because I’ve always said that this is my club. I want to leave behind a legacy… Emma Byrne, Kelly Smith, Rachel Yankey, Faye White, all these players that gave their footballing careers in England to this club and there’s a reason you all did that and it’s because of the success the club had and how much you all love it. I say it’s a fairy-tale that I’m still here, I have won trophies and we’ve continued to compete for trophies, that’s really important to me and I think that I owe the club as well for everything they’ve given to me, and it’s time for me to give back to them…”
Leah couldn’t be prouder to be both an Arsenal player and a fan and you can always see that when she steps on to the pitch, admitting as such herself, stating: “I’ve got everything I want in my world, everything that is important to me because genuinely Arsenal is up there in the most important things in my life, of course it is. It’s such a big part of my family and I’ve got all of those things all together, which just makes it, you know? It makes me happy, it always has done.”
Along her journey Leah hasn’t looked back once and is aiming to become one of the best centre backs in the world, adding: “I’ve never been shy in saying that my aim is to be the best centre back in the world. My coaches have always had that belief in me, players have always said to me that I can go as high as I wanted to and I need to start realising that now. That’s another thing about signing my new contract: can I do that here? I believe that for the foreseeable that yeah, that’s true and that as much as I push my own standards, playing around the best players and getting the right support from the coaching staff, hopefully if you mix those things together I can take it to the next level.”
As we have seen Leah grow into the player she is today, at the age of just 24 there is no doubt there is so much more to come from her.
Whether she remains at Arsenal beyond her extension or not, either way she will leave a legacy, and we can also remember that she was made at the Arsenal and will always be a product of one of the biggest clubs in the history of women’s football!
Shenel Osman
