WHY ARTETA DOESN'T PLAY TEENAGERS
Goooooood morning ARSENAL BEST FRIENDS.
I’ve been debating the Arda Güler stories with my Arsenal IRL friends, and there seems to be a bit of a split camp out here.
On the one hand, we’re struggling to comprehend a move for a 19-year-old that plays in a creative position when we have Ethan Nwaneri looking quite like the exact same player. One factor we have to consider is Güler has 105 appearances to his name as a professional, so he is more experienced and more ready by Nwaneri’s standards.
The other wrinkle in this story is where we are as a club in 2024. I just can’t see Arsenal deciding that the best move for us would be to take a 19-year-old without Premier League experience, without a single G or A to his name this season, and give him a with world-class coaching, at a world class club—only to hand him back. Training other clubs players ain’t it.
There’s simply no way Güler is at the standard of Arsenal right now because if he was, he’d be getting more love in Madrid. But the bigger issue here for me is if you got the talented creative midfielder into form at Arsenal, 1) it would be at the expense of Nwaneri, who is our player and our investment, and 2) you’d be doing Madrid, a Champions League rival, a massive favor.
There’s another stunning rumor doing the rounds regarding a Madrid player, and that’s the one linking Endrick to a loan move to Southampton. This one makes far more sense—Southampton are trying to survive, Endrick is trying to get minutes and toughen up; this is win-win. Southampton get a very talented player who could give them what they want… the flip side of this one: is it wise to think a 16-yr-old Brazilian could impact a club in a rele battle?
My suspicion is that Arsenal are out of the loan market these days UNLESS there is a commitment from the loaning club to sell should the best happen.
My concern with the Arsenal squad at the moment is that even with Ethan in the mix, there is too much of an experience gap between him and Martin for this season. There just aren’t that many 17-year-olds contributing to the level Arsenal needs in world football at the moment. The best teenagers in world football—or should I say, MOST LIKELY TO PLAY—are in Ligue 1. The pound-for-pound quality of the French league is far lower, so it’s easier to give teenagers experience.
Barcelona are skewing the data for La Liga because they have been forced to play their teenagers because they have spend Spain’s GDP twice over and are probably bankrupt if you dared to look. You think Yamal would be getting minutes if they could spend £400m a summer like they used to? Probably not (ok, a bit of an exaggeration).
Premier League minutes are even more striking based on last season. Only four teams offered more than 1,000 minutes to teenagers last season, and none of them competed at the very highest level. United blurred the lines there because Kobe Mainoo took half their minutes.
The good news? Arsenal have already 5x’d their number this season by dishing out a whopping 68 minutes of Premier League action between Myles and Ethan. The underlying story here isn’t ‘wow, so amazing’; it’s ‘we have missed some very big players who have opened gaps and still opted to choose square pegs for the rounded holes. Rounded holes that the teenagers are far more likely to be suited to.’
So now you have two choices out here as an Arsenal fan on how you want to think about this problem:
Arteta has outrageous talent on his hands, and he’s simply too scared to unleash it on the first team because he’s meek when it comes to blooding youngsters.
Arteta has gaffed on gauging where the said talent is right now and has underprepared the squad this season.
My guess is we are sitting on number two this season. I would maybe be a bit kinder in the phrasing. I suspect the manager didn’t think he’d be in a situation where the usually robust Martin Ødegaard was out for so many games, and I imagine he didn’t think we’d constantly be in a situation where our left-back position—one that can be covered by four players—would so frequently be down to bare bones.
I can now tell you from experience—speak to anyone who works in football at any level, and they will tell you the same thing about teenagers: They are not built ready, you take huge risks when you play them, and you have to let them fail to reach the promised land.
What you and I don’t understand is this: Teenagers’ brains aren’t fully formed yet. Men’s don’t get there until they are 25 (it’s true, that’s why young men do dumb things with more frequency than women). Freak footballers tend to have the ability to mature more early—hence Bukayo Saka, who has the mental focus of a 30-year-old man in his early 20s. But think about the NEW challenges we’re putting on the shoulders of these kids. We’re asking them to:
Learn to play in front of a crowd
Learn to be away from home for long stretches
Learn to live alone for the first time
Learn to handle the attention of the opposite sex (same sex, whatever)
Learn to deal with social media fame
Learn that your down periods can’t even be training sessions in the new world
Learn that there are grown men writing essays about you
Learn how to manage your body
Learn that in this new world, you are no longer special; you are at the bottom rung of the ladder
Learn about huge sums of money
We concern ourselves with Arteta integrating teenagers and trivialize it as a simple integration—I have heard managers looking after reserve teams talk about the difficulties of doing it at the second-team level. That’s 17-year-olds going up against 22-year-olds. Now imagine the jump going from teenager to marking Mo Salah.
The biggest test for a manager is this: Arsenal can’t afford mistakes when they’re up against Manchester City in a title race. On the one hand, fans are waving the white flag after 11 games. On the other, they are demanding more teenage minutes despite all of the above facts. Only four teams in the league gave more than 1,000 of them last season. So why do you, a fan sitting there eating your morning Pop-Tart, think that 80% of Premier League managers are getting it wrong?
Hope. The allure of the unknown. The dream of seeing another Bukayo Saka or Emile Smith Rowe make the break right now and take our season to the most glorious of finales.
This diatribe isn’t designed to tell you that’s not possible; it’s more to focus you on the reality of the Premier League: Harry Kane and William Saliba needed multiple loans before they were ready. Endrick and Arda Güler are being hawked as loan options in the media. Being a teenager in the Premier League is really hard. Just ask Amario Cozier-Duberry, who went to Brighton to taste sweet, sweet sea breeze and first-team football on the South Coast, only to be sent straight out on loan to Blackburn Rovers, where he’s been given 71 minutes so far this season with 0 goals and 0 assists to his name.
Ok, those are my thoughts this morning—let me know what you think in the comments. Check out the latest podcast drop from me and Johnny below. There’s a Thursday Therapy coming later. I’m going to give Early Bird Access to The Art of Culture Part II later. We’ll also be delivering an exclusive Before The Whistle on Friday. Saturday, if you want the podcast LIVE, you’ll have to sign up to become a member. Join Le Grove as a member below and have a more fulfilling life (allegedly).