Sam Greenwood stepped up in Folarin Balogun’s absence to score his sixth goal of the season for the Arsenal u18s, keeping a good run of form going in the 2-0 win over Aston Villa.

Greenwood signed for Arsenal over the summer, still only 16 years old even now, but he’s quickly made an impact in the u18s.

Back in early September, he was only making substitute appearances for the team. However, after getting his first assist against Chelsea, he then made it into the starting XI.

In his nine league starts since then, the youngster has six goals and one assist. The pressure was particularly on him on Saturday, as fellow free-scoring u18 striker Folarin Balogun wasn’t in the squad. It’s not clear yet whether that’s due to injury, or if the forward is getting a chance in the u23s.

Whatever the reason for Balogun’s absence, Greenwood made the most of it with a goal, as Arsenal won 2-0. Ben Cottrell scored the second, making it two goals in consecutive games.

Greenwood posted a video of his goal to his Instagram page after the game, which you can check out below:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsjHaB7D_fU/

With Eddie Nketiah currently Arsenal’s third choice striker, Tyreece John-Jules up to seven academy goals and four assists for the season, Balogun on 12 goals for the u18s and Greenwood coming up behind him, the academy have no shortage of centre-forward talent. Let’s hope they’re scoring goals for the first team before long.