How Excited Should Arsenal Be About Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri?
Arsenal will have rather different memories of the last time anyone so young scored a goal against the reigning champions.
In Sunday afternoon’s 5-1 win over Manchester City at the Emirates, Ethan Nwaneri (17 years, 318 days) and Myles Lewis-Skelly (18y 129d) became the youngest players to score in the Premier League against the champions since Wayne Rooney scored for Everton against Arsenal in March 2003 (17y 150d).
Rooney’s goal – just the fourth he scored in the competition came early on in. What eventually became one of the greatest careers the Premier League has ever seen. So, given the role Lewis-Skelly played in Arsenal’s latest victory and Nwaneri’s continuing rise, you could forgive anyone for getting excited about what the future holds for these two prodigies.
“They play with a lot of personality,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said after the game. Really brave. They have the courage. They really intense, and they understand what we want.
“The [other] players believe in them. When you have a 17-, 18-year-old next to you and you feel okay with that, and you feel that we are a better team, that is a big sign. And they’ve earned that.”
Lewis-Skelly’s emergence as Arsenal’s first-choice left-back has look surprising from the outside.
But he has never doubte. Where he would end up. He didn’t even make the matchday squad for Arsenal’s opening game of the season คาสิโนออนไลน์ UFABET ฝากถอนรวดเร็ว เริ่มต้นเล่นง่าย against Wolves, but reports have now emerged that he rejected the club’s suggestion that he should be sent out on loan. He saw his future in the first team, and imminently.
His self-confidence is plain to see on the pitch, too, not least from the celebration that poke fun at Erling Haaland. On the ball, he is calm in pressured situations, happy to dribble his way out of trouble when facing his own goal as he did in one key moment this weekend, and a composed figure when Arsenal look to play out from the back.