In Part One we discussed the oldies that are out on loan, and there are unlikely to be any of them getting into the Arsenal first team in the future, unless Emery does a U-Turn on Lucas Perez, so today we will take a look at some of our more promising candidates….
So let’s start with Jeff Reine-Adelaide, who actually reached the fringes of the first team but has since been plagued by injuries. It hasn’t improved too much lately either as he missed most of the first half of the season, but then went to France on loan at Angers. He made ten appearances and was praised, but got injured again towards the end of the season and he has had to pull out of the Toulon tournament this summer as he is still in the treatment room…
Another good prospect is Julio Pleguezuelo who was the captain of the Arsenal U23s. He went to Gimnàstic de Tarragona in the Spanish Segunda Division and made 8 appearances although he missed a portion of the time injured (of course! It seems to be a recurring theme!). He is a very versatile defender but as he is 21 already he will have to start being impressive very soon…
Another one that we had high hopes for last season until he needed surgery was Krystian Bielik, but unfortunately once he recovered he went on loan to Walsall, got injured again, and didn’t even get to play once! He will have to try and get a full season under his belt on loan before he will even be considered for Arsenal….
Ben Sheaf is another promising defender who was sent to Stevenage in January, and after a minor injury he made ten appearances. We will probably see him in pre-season games….
The right-back Tafari Moore joined Wycombe Wanderers in January and made 13 appearances in League Two….
We also sent out our left-back Marc Bola, who played regularly for Bristol Rovers in League One. A definite one for pre-season games…
The striker Stephy Mavididi had loans at Preston and Charlton with mixed results and a layoff with a hamstring injury, but he did play in both legs of the League 1 play-off semi-final but Charlton were unfortunately beaten by Shrewsbury.
One of ours that has definitely impressed is Kelechi Nwakali. The young Nigerian has been on loan at Venlo and Maastricht and played lots of games and scored six goals too. He also impressed and scored in a young Nigerian team that was narrowly beaten by an Atletico Madrid XI last week. Very promising lad….
We were hoping that Emiliano Martinez would have got many more games out on loan at Getafe, but the 25 year-old keeper spent nearly all season on the bench. Wenger rated him highly and he has played some good games for us when needed, but has he any chance of getting into the first team?
I think that is about it. It remains to be seen how many of our youngsters actually make the grade, but I definitely have high hopes for Nwakali, but my hopes for Bielik and Jeff have taken a knock this season…
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