Emile Smith Rowe hasn’t suffered an injury setback despite his early substitution against Derby County on Friday, and he’s now ready to rejoin the first team.

Smith Rowe has been playing with the u23s to build his fitness over the last few weeks, scoring once and assisting once so far. The rundown of his minutes played is as follows:

• Blackburn – 45 minutes
• Brighton – 62 minutes
• Everton – 90 minutes
• Northampton Town – 90 minutes
• Derby – 73 minutes

As you can see, Smith Rowe was building up his game time with longer and longer appearances on each occasion, so it was worrying to see him come off 17 minutes early after appearing to go down injured against Derby.

Fortunately, football.london report there hasn’t been any setback in Smith Rowe’s recovery, and the teenager is finally fully fit. He’ll join first-team training under Unai Emery over the international break, and the club don’t want him to go on loan this summer.

That could change in January, with RB Leipzig and VfL Wolfsburg both interested, but it’s obviously going to depend on how the next few months go.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Iwobi’s summer departures have opened up spots in the first-team squad for whichever youngsters can make a positive impression. Smith Rowe did just that last season, scoring three goals in six senior appearances, so he has a headstart.

Whilst he’s been playing centrally for the u23s recently, Smith Rowe originally broke through as a winger, and he spent half of last season out wide on the left as well. That’s more likely where the first team will use him, considering they’re fairly well stocked already in central areas.