Xavier Amaechi made his first u23 start since August on Monday night, and he took full advantage of being back on the pitch to score a goal and provide an assist.

Xavier Amaechi is regarded as one of the top talents coming through the academy at the moment, and he’d made a great start to the season back in August, scoring one and assisting three in his first four games. However, he then picked up an injury which ruled him out for the following few months.

The winger made a brief substitute return to the team in mid-December, right before the winter break, but it wasn’t until Monday night that he got his first start. He came back with a bang, scoring Arsenal’s opening goal, although Bukayo Saka has to take a lot of credit for setting it up:

https://twitter.com/ArsenalAcademy/status/1082385968857051137

After that, with Arsenal going 2-1 down, Amaechi had to turn provider in the final minutes. He set up the Gunners’ equaliser with time running out after nice work down the left-hand side.

https://twitter.com/ArsenalAcademy/status/1082591871346581504

Arsenal u23s have really struggled to score goals with Amaechi out and so many of his teammates getting call-ups to the first team. Before Monday night, they only had one goal in three league games. Nonetheless, scoring twice was only enough to secure a draw on this occasion.

Hopefully, Amaechi will keep up his impressive form and start knocking on the door of the first team before long. If he hadn’t suffered such an unfortunately-timed injury, he’d probably have made his debut already.