Max Dowman was included in Arsenal’s first-team photo this week, a further hint that he’s already been officially promoted to the senior squad.
Arsenal rarely publically confirm first-team promotions, so the general public are often left relying on various hints that an academy player is making the full-time switch to the senior squad.
Those hints are stacking up in the case of 15-year-old Max Dowman, who was photographed as part of the official first-team squad photo on Wednesday.
The majority of those in the picture were clearly fully-fledged senior players, with academy players left out.
Even Tommy Setford, who has only made one appearance for the senior side, is officially a first-teamer at Arsenal. So it was significant to see Dowman included too.
There have been plenty of other indicators of Dowman’s promotion recently. For a start, the teenager has been named in four of Arsenal’s five senior matchday squads, and none of the u21, u19, u18, or u16 squads for which he’s still eligible.
Then there’s the fact he was wearing his shirt number (56) on his training kit this week, whilst other youth players wore “U19”. Only the senior players wear their numbers on their training kits ahead of UEFA fixtures.
Arsenal did also name Dowman in their senior squad in the Champions League, but that was largely for administrative reasons. Dowman is currently too young to meet UEFA’s requirements for the u21 list, so if the Gunners want to play him, they had no choice but to name him as a senior player.
If you’re looking for the smoking gun, Dowman wearing his shirt number in training is probably the strongest indicator that he’s been promoted.
Making the senior squad on multiple occasions, featuring in the team photo, or even being named as a senior player on the squad list don’t prove anything alone. Plenty of youth players have had one of the three happen without being formally promoted internally.
But the combination of all three factors plus the training shirt number all add up to effectively confirm it.