After the official AGM had ended, shareholders (who, well, are naturally Arsenal fans) continued to grab the attention of Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger.
The club is known for an ability to develop young players, something Ivan Gazidis said we must continue to do on Thursday, but who of the current young talents is most impressive?
Wenger asked offline who our best young player is. He says Jeff will get a chance this season & he likes Bielek a lot.
— AFC_Andrew (@PR_WhoRu) October 15, 2015
After an impressive pre-season outing against VfL Wolfsburg, everyone was excited by Jeff Reine-Adelaide. The teenager, signed from RC Lens in the summer, shone out wide against tough opposition and earned himself a place in the first team squad for the season.
Starting with the u21s, Reine-Adelaide was unfortunately injured for the third round League Cup game against Spurs and will miss the fourth round game against Sheffield Wednesday as he is at the u17 World Cup with France. Still, Arsenal have very few options for the left wing beyond Alexis Sánchez, so we are likely to see Reine-Adelaide given a chance at some point.
Krystian Bielik was also signed as a 17-year-old, and is currently playing for the u21s. A midfielder for Poland u17s and with Legia Warsaw, he’s filling in at centre-back at Arsenal. Maybe he is being prepared for a holding midfield role, or maybe we just don’t have many good centre-backs at youth level, either way it’s refreshing to hear Wenger rates him highly.
Donyell Malen, Vlad Dragomir and Yassin Fortune are all new recruits and names to look out for, along with Hale End graduates Chris Willock and Alex Iwobi. As ever, Arsenal could blood some very exciting young talents into the first team in the near future.