Fortune’s injury frustration
With pre-season already underway, a number of talented youngsters in the u21, u18 and schoolboy set-up are eager to take their chance centre-stage.
One who will not be amongst them until the 2016/17 campaign, is Yassin Fortune. The 17-year-old Frenchman, who joined the club last summer in a double deal alongside Jeff Reine-Adelaide, has unfortunately suffered an injury after returning to pre-season training – and will be sidelined for between two and three months.
Unless the recovery period is faster than initially diagnosed, Fortune is set to miss the start of the u18 season, which begins in August.
Iwobi’s Olympic call-up
As we mentioned earlier in the week, Alex Iwobi has been included in the provisional Nigeria Olympic squad for the summer games in Rio.
The 20-year-old winger is part of five British-based players who’ve been included. When the full squad is cut down to 18, he’s expected to be a part of the team alongside his close friend, Manchester City’s Kelechi Iheanacho.
If Nigeria progress from Group B – alongside Sweden, Colombia and Japan – and go all the way, they could finish the tournament on the 20th of August. That would mean Iwobi would miss the start of the Premier League campaign, which begins on 13 August. He’d probably get an extended break too, meaning he could return to first-team action in September.
Links to sign talented City attacker
Initial rumours emerged back in December that we were interested in signing City’s attacking forward Tyrese Campbell. Since then, links had gone quiet up until mid-April, where it was reported he had rejected a two-year scholarship contract to remain in Manchester.
His contract expires at the end of this month, and the 16-year-old has been courting interest from Everton and West Ham as well as Arsenal – who remain interested in his services.
Having scored a whopping 49 goals in all competitions at youth level last term, he has represented England at u17 level and continues to progress.
Where he’ll end up, is still uncertain. If he does opt for a move to the Emirates though, it’ll be a signal of intent for a youth side that continue to improve year-upon-year, priding themselves on developing talented players with impressive efficiency.