Alan Alger
In 2010 a young Brazilian called Wellington Silva joined Arsenal as a 16-year-old. We were told at the time that we had fought off interest from Manchester United, Real Madrid and Chelsea to land a player with an incredibly bright future. My first glimpse of Silva came just after half-time in the 2013 version of our annual pre-season friendly at Boreham Wood. He barely touched the ball in a limp 3-0 defeat for a mixed Under 21 and Under 18 Gunners’ side. On my way out of the ground I tweeted ‘would love to know how it was decided that any of these players were worthy of being at Arsenal’ and followed up with ‘if any of the 20 or so players I saw today ever make the Arsenal first team as regulars, something will have gone incredibly wrong’.
Ok so the second tweet is a little dramatic and of the 21 players listed on the teamsheet that day two did play first team football for Arsenal, although only Alex Iwobi (who played the last 31 minutes) looks like proving the assessment wrong.
This weekend I sent similar tweets as I walked out of Boreham Wood’s Meadow Park ground. The result was identical to three years before, a 3-0 home win. The personnel had changed, but if anything the performance from the young Gunners was actually far worse.
Again it was an Arsenal XI – made up of the same mix of Under 21 and Under 18 players. The roman numerals acting as a warning to anyone that fancies seeing established first teamers that they might have a wasted journey. The marketing spin used by the savvy hosts is that we can come and see the ‘Premier League stars of the future’. It’s a fixture that the ‘Wood have been granted a number of times the last few seasons, barring the 2015 match cancelled due to poor weather. The National League (Step 5 of the English pyramid system) team host all Arsenal Ladies matches and a selection of Arsenal Youth teams across the season. Occasionally fans at this fixture have been rewarded with appearances from first team stars, Aaron Ramsey recently and even Dennis Bergkamp (in 2001 when the arrangement was less formal).
Some people reading this will argue that we cannot take pre-season results seriously, especially ones from a youth team that aren’t used to playing with each other. I’d counter that what I’ve seen in this Boreham Wood friendly in 2013, and last weekend, does show a far deeper problem at the club. Let’s go back three years and examine a selection of the players on view that day closely. Zach Fagan played in defence and was given a torrid time, he later found his level in Non-League with Welling United but seems to have gone missing since signing for them. Or how about Austin Lipman, a player that we heard some good things about, he eventually joined Boreham Wood on loan, but deemed surplus to requirements found his level at ‘Step 12’ of the pyramid with local club London Lions.
You could say that taking a punt on a number of youth players from the local area may pay off even if only 1 in every 20 goes on to become a decent player, but some of these players are costing us money. Take Leander Siemann for example, he joined the club for £250k back in March 2011. He played in defence in the 2013 game. He was released by the club about 10 months later and (via a doping case in Portugal) is now plying his trade in the German reserve league for FC Koln II. All this brings us back to Silva, who has re-joined Fluminense after six wasted years of development costs, wages, hosting and an initial £3.5m transfer fee. These aren’t punts, they’re costly experiments that are mostly going wrong.
The 2013 youth side followed up their 3-0 defeat at Boreham Wood by losing 7-0 at Luton Town, a game after which some serious questions should have been asked of Steve Gatting and his staff - maybe they were, Dutchman Andries Jonker came in a year later to head up the team. Hector Bellerin and Alex Iwobi the only two players to have emerged from that game with any path of an Arsenal career in the intervening three years. Gatting was again on the Arsenal bench for the Boreham Wood game last weekend. He has held the top youth team position in our coaching ranks since 2007. A time in which we’ve seen very little progress from the hundreds (and it is in the hundreds) of youngsters that have tried to break through the system. Something must be wrong – the initial scouting and selection OR the development – maybe a mixture of the two.
Back to Saturday, where there was no communication on the pitch between the Arsenal players, no leaders organising on the pitch and the absolute lack of any semblance of a plan in even the most basic of game situations – throws, free-kicks etc. I know that all sounds extremely familiar to those of you that just watch the first team. There was even a second-half corner when trailing in the game that sailed over the whole area and went out for a throw on the other side. The first goal for Boreham Wood featured an uncontested cross and keeper Joao Virgina palming weakly at the ball as it passed him to hit the back of the net.
There really should not be any excuses. The hosts had young players on the pitch too, and also (as a new squad) hadn’t played together that much. Manager Luke Garrard one of the youngest in Non-League’s top-flight had them playing by far the better football (moves of up to 20 passes at least three times in the second half). Maybe it meant far more to them and their second half performance brought about a goal from a well worked move and then a penalty (naively given away by Virgina after his defence had been easily bypassed). The overriding view, as in 2013, is that none of these youngsters were up to the grade of being at our club. To the extent where it was questionable how indeed some of them ever were.
At this age group we’ve been told plenty of times that the performance is what counts not the result. In the absence of both it’s surely only right to be concerned.
Jonker has been at the head of the development system at Colney for two years now, but this fixture proves (to an extent) that there hasn’t been any improvement. It really looks as if the future is not bright at all and maybe the coaching staff need another overhaul. If this is the best we can do then I’m a Dutchman too Andries.
