Max Dowman joins Bukayo Saka, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly in showing Arsenal’s Hale End academy is their biggest asset | Football News

The Emirates stadium crackled with anticipation each time the ball arrived at the feet of Max Dowman. As in the pre-season matches of Arsenal, his teammates made a concerted effort to put it there. It is easy to understand why. The 15 -year -old is a special talent.

Dowman became the second greatest player in the history of the Premier League with his introduction against Leeds, a huge success in itself. But the most remarkable is that, in addition to being the youngest arsenal player, he has once again looked at the most dangerous.

Leeds could not contain it. The drop of the shoulder to win Arsenal’s late penalty crowned exciting beginnings. One day of theater, unveiling, injuries and first goals, it was Dowman, a schoolboy for four months of his 16th anniversary, who stole the show.

“This is what we see every day in training,” smiled Mikel Arteta afterwards. It is something else, however, to do it on this scene. “He is so convinced that he can go there at 15 and deliver this, which I have never witnessed my life,” added the director of Arsenal.

Dowman could be the most exciting academic product of Arsenal to date. He certainly looks particularly ready for step at his age. But he is only the last player in the club’s production chain in recent years.

Hale End continues to deliver.

In the latest stages of the Saturday match, Dowman was one of the three teenagers graduated from the Academy on the ground for Arsenal with Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly, both already established at senior level, veterans relating to 18 years.

Bukayo Saka, an inspiration for the three having become a talismanic figure for the club and its implementation of youth, had previously scored the second goal before being forced to injure itself. In the new Ebelechi Eze signature, there was another former Hale Ender Landant.

Eze is different, of course, in that he had to leave, at the age of 13, to do it at the senior level. But his connected past makes his return even more intoxicating to the supporters of the club. He was welcomed on Saturday as a childhood fan as well as a former player of the Academy.

In the Matchday program, Arsenal’s co-president Josh Kroenke had spoken of the importance of linking Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri to new contracts. “They know what it means to be arsenal,” he said. Eze too. The club is also woven in its DNA.

“It brings joy, it brings an emotion,” said Arteta afterwards. He referred to the emergence of Dowman, but the same goes to be applied to one of the products of the club academy.

Their instant link with the club and its supporters is of course only part of their offer. Saka, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly and Dowman, carefully nourished by Arsenal since childhood, added immense quality to the team at no cost of transfer costs.

At just 15 years old, Dowman is too young for an evaluation. A player cannot order transfer fees before having signed his first professional contract after being 16 years old. Anything that can expect it.

But it is stunning to think about the heights he could reach, and how much he could bring to a team already assessed as the second most precious in the world after that of Real Madrid.

Arsenal assembled a group of players worth 1.14 billion pounds Sterling for transfer fees totaling 826 million pounds sterling. No other first league is even closer to the generation of squad value compared to the cost.

It is largely thanks to their products from the Academy in Flowers.

Saka is now estimated at 129.3 million pounds sterling per Transferreflecting its status of one of the best players in the world. Still at only 23 years old, there remains the jewel of the Crown of the Academy, its advanced years to come.

Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly have a long way to go to reach the heights of Saka, but their trajectories, at 18, are not different. The first is estimated at 48 million pounds sterling; The latter 39 M £. Hope is that they will continue to grow and develop, and that Dowman will be the next one.

Players and their families are of course the main engines of their success. Together, they also reflect the excellent work of the director of the Academy by Mertesacker and the various coaches who supervised their progress in age groups in Hale End.

But they also need a manager ready to trust them and they have it in Arteta, whose close relationship with Mertesacker contributed to ensuring the alignment between the academy and the senior team, opening a clear path in the first team.

Since the start of last season, Arsenal has given players aged 18 or less than any other Premier League team for more minutes. Even the players of the academy that have evolved, such as Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah, have generated value thanks to their sales.

Unusually for a manager of the first team, Arteta played an active role in meetings with players such as Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly from a young age, well before joining the senior team. But it is since their promotions that their progress has really accelerated.

This is partly due to the exhibition, but Arteta coaching has also helped. Saka played back when Arteta arrived at the club but prospered like a straight side forward. Lewis-Skelly, previously a central midfielder, was reinvented as a left back.

It remains to be seen where the long -term future of Dowman is located. So far, it has been used in the role of Saka, cutting inside the right, on its left foot. But it can also play centrally, is as n ° 8 or n ° 10.

The possibilities are alleged. He will of course have to be protected because of his age. Dowman is always a year from sitting his GCSE. But it is clear that he has a role to play even in the short term.

The events at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday recalled that the Arsenal Academy is the key to their present as well as their future.