Arsenal and RKC Waalwijk have confirmed Mika Biereth’s season-long loan move to the Dutch side for the coming campaign.

Arsenal officially confirmed on Thursday that Mika Biereth will be joining Eredivisie club RKC Waalwijk on loan for the season.

Waalwijk general manager Frank van Mosselveld told their club website: “We are very happy that we have been able to hire Mika. With his talent and potential, he is one of the greatest talents of the Arsenal Academy and therefore a real opportunity for us.

“At RKC next season he will have the opportunity to make minutes at Eredivisie level every week and as a result to develop further.”

The Athletic report that the long-term plan for Biereth is for him to spend a year in the Netherlands, followed by a year on loan in England.

So it will be a couple of seasons of adaptation to hopefully take the striker from youth football to first-team football with Arsenal.

Biereth had a tricky task playing for the academy last season, simultaneously joining a new club (Arsenal) and playing his first full campaign at u23 level.

Yet he passed the test with flying colours, proving to be one of the youth players of the season. In the end, Biereth scored 14 goals and assisted a further nine in 2021/22.

He looks ready for a new challenge in the Eredivisie, which is a great league for young players. A study by CIES a few years ago ranked the league as the second youngest in Europe by the average age of players.

If he can go and start regularly, as suggested by the Waalwijk general manager, the goals and assists should start to flow at senior level before long.