Struggling for minutes at Arsenal but playing regularly for England u21s, what next for Calum Chambers?

So far this season Chambers has played just 324 minutes for Arsenal, with two of his three starts coming in the League Cup. Nonetheless, the defender is happy with the path his career is taking.

“I feel I have learned so much over the last two years and I am happy,” Chambers said while on international duty with England u21s. “I don’t think it happened too quickly. It just happened very quickly. It was a whirlwind start but I took it game by game and I enjoyed it. At the moment, I have changed position to centre back. I’m not getting so much game time but I am still working in training and trying to fight for my place.”

With Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny in the squad it would be hard to enough to gain experience, but the Gunners have also signed Gabriel to play at the back and it is now incredibly difficult to see Chambers getting regular football, but he is still just 20 and needs to have patience.

A player with a huge amount of talent, he’s also aiming to get back into Roy Hodgson’s plans, as well as the Arsenal first team.

“At the moment I’m trying to fight for my place at Arsenal so to come here and get game time it is good for me so it’s going to benefit me this season,” he said between representing England u21s against Bosnia and then Switzerland. “You always want to fight to get the call up but you can see there are opportunities there for us to go up.”

“You’ve got to keep it in the back of your mind and aim for it, so we’ll have to see what happens.

“Obviously I miss it because representing your country at senior level is one of your ultimate goals, but coming here and getting game time is good.”

It is hard to remember that Chambers is only 20, and has an incredibly long future ahead of him. Laurent Koscielny is 30 and Per Mertesacker 31, so Chambers will have plenty of opportunities to impress in the not too distant future.

Should he take them, he could be at the heart of the Arsenal defence for a very long time.