On Friday, Calum Chambers made his second appearance for the Arsenal academy since returning from injury, continuing his positive progress.

Over 10 months on from picking up an ACL injury with the Arsenal first-team in December, Calum Chambers returned to the pitch with the u21s against Gillingham earlier this month. The club are clearly keen to ease him back, only giving him 45 minutes that game.

The centre-back got another start against the Everton u23s on Friday, his first game back at the Emirates Stadium since his injury. He played the first 75 minutes this time, eventually coming off for Jonathan Dinzeyi.

For the opening 70 minutes, Chambers was actually playing out at right-back. Arsenal were keen to give Sokratis Papastathopoulos and William Saliba a game as well, so someone had to play on the right in Steve Bould’s current 4-3-1-2 system.

Chambers linked up well with Emile Smith Rowe in the first half, though all of their jobs were made more difficult when Folarin Balogun picked up a red card fairly early on in the second.

With young right-back Brooke Norton-Cuffy coming on for Sokratis, Chambers moved to centre-back for the final five minutes of his appearance, before coming off himself.

Arsenal kept a clean sheet despite going down to 10 men, winning a vital three points after a poor start to the season. For Chambers, it’s another step closer to the first-team, as he edges towards playing a full 90.