Etched in Arsenal’s long an glorious history, is a list of Irish players who have graced our former home at Highbury, and have previously taken part and shared the Gunners success.
However at our new stadium The Emirates, there is no obvious Irish player who could take that mantle, but talented youngster Cormac Hegarty could be that man. Having come through the ranks at Hale End, Cormac has become a regular for the Ireland youth teams, featuring at Under 15 and 16 levels.
Hegarty is a hard working and industrious central midfielder, who can also play wide on the right. His energy and tackling skills have seen him rise through the ranks quickly, with the highlight so far when he travelled with the Under 16 side to Italy for the Atalanta Cup. He made one start during the competition, as Arsenal won the tournament on penalties.
Next season he should establish himself as a regular in Steve Gatting’s Under 16’s, having been only on the fringes last year. Another break through season in the next campaign, should see him promoted to Steve Bould’s Under 18 team, a massive step in his future development.
Young stopper Charlie Mann is gaining a huge reputation as one of the brightest goalkeeping talents in England after several impressive performances for Arsenal’s Under 15’s and 16’s last and this season.
Superb on crosses and a natural shot stopper he has even pushed James Shea for a regular place in Steve Gattings Under 16 side, with Gatting often switching Shea and Mann at half time in recent fixtures.
However with Shea moving up to Under 18s football it has allowed Charlie the chance to become number 1, and he has taken the baton and ran with it, despite some nervous displays in the begging he has soon become assured and confident, quickly gaining the respect of the back four and going to strength to strength.
Many have made comparisons to former Manchester United keeper Peter Schmeichel, mainly because they look similar, but if Charlie keeps developing at his current rate maybe one day he could become as big a star.
Whilst there is a long way to go for both these players, the early signs are that they will be exciting prospects in the coming seasons.
Article By – J.Sanderson
so they really good then? will they make the first team?
Hey J; Nice one for keeping Gooners informed on the kids fella.
Do you go to loads of yute matches or do you rely on others for your info?
I feel like this is going a bit too far, they’re too young to be put at the mercy of internet smarks.
How tall is Mann, approximately? Often with young keepers it can be a lack of stature that let’s them down. Also how would you compare him with Szczesny?
I think Szczesny will be a star for Arsenal in the future. I have only seen videos of U-18 games but I just think he will make it. He always looks good, people speak highly of him and he just looks so level headed young guy.
But good article about the youngsters. One thing you could add if you know it, how old they are. It’s quite difficult to estimate who will make it at that age. Afobe could become a big flop and often the ones that don’t look very good at that age are the ones that become extremely good. Just remember: When Gerrard was 14, he was rejected in a football camp. The guys thought he was too small to ever make it.
I feel like this is going a bit too far, they’re too young to be put at the mercy of internet smarks.
crafty bison said this on June 2, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Maybe your right..
Well the site is dedicated to Arsenal reserves and YOUTH. And the name is YOUNG guns. Hence these two profiles
“I feel like this is going a bit too far, they’re too young to be put at the mercy of internet smarks.”
Its more of a congratulation and vote of encoragement than an invitation to disect them as we do older players so i cant agree with you there. If any1 does start picking away at them you may have a point but i doubt any1 would.
Nice to hear a bit about the stream of young talent that is so often forgotten by fans. I hope they have great seasons and i cant wait to see either in the U18s if they get a game. Wenger and Bould have talked very, very highly of some of the young players around that age, so its exiting to think we might get to see glimpses of few of them now.
Totally agree with you Johnny mate, what I think crafty bison was getting at was the pics of 14/15 year old kids being published on a site with many viewers..
Mann is around 185cm, but still growing all the time he is 16 now so should have a growth spurt soon, and looks like he could become a superb prospect.
Yes it is about youth players, the young prospects to watch out for, the pictures are to illistrate the type of player, you can see what type of player some people are with a picture as you can judge height and such.
I have previosuly refused to put pictures of the really young players up for this season, but these boys are 15/16.
so 15 isn’t really young?
can’t you change the name and focus of this site?
Something like Old farts. Then you could concentrate on ancient old players and do, what are they up to now articles.
Yep, thats a winner if ever I heard one.
15/16 is when they enter the payroll at the club, and start to recieve money, so if they old enough to recive payment and sign contracts, fly all over the world, then they are old enough to be on a website about sports.
If you dont like it go elsewhere mate, but the site is about young players, so newsflash, there will be news and profiles about them.
You can earn money by doing a paper run in the morning at 12/13 Jamie. It’s nothing to do with liking the site, i’m talking about the content of the photos.
paper round *
I dont see the problem here really as Fabregas and Rooney were playing for there teams at 16 years old so they were in the media, so whats the difference here?
When Gerrard was 14, he was rejected in a football camp. The guys thought he was too small to ever make it.
Veloso and Rooney were rejected by Benfica and Liverpool for being too overweight :D How the hell could Gerrard ever be too small, christ if you look at him now, pretty tall and definatley not skinny. Just shows players should be judged on what they can do with a ball rather than their physical build. If messi was English imagine how hard it would have been for him to find a club?
I cant see any problem about the pics, there were videos of Merida and Bojan playing when they were 14 years old.
they’re just photos man get over it
**
“When Gerrard was 14, he was rejected in a football camp. The guys thought he was too small to ever make it.”
4got the quotations…
Just raising a question Jamjam…
You are doing a great job so please keep it up. I am a 56 year old Arsenal fan and I faithfully follow your updates on the young players.
For those people who can’t understand the digital age, photos lend to the overall presentation and there is no reason why the young lads should not be pictorially show. It’s up to us as fans to give them their privacy and allow them to age gracefully.
Btw and this is very off topic so i apologise but does anyone know if any of our French players are Scorpios? I know too little about star signs to be able (and be bothered) to work it out, but i do know Dominech wont play scorpios in the french squad so i was just wondering if that explains Clichy, Sagna and Diaby’s absence from the Euro 2008 squad. Although Diaby is probably just a matter of inexperiance and age going against him, but i still cant get my head around the other two. Clichy hasnt even made his French first team debut yet has he? (Probably wrong on that 1, atleast i hope i am).
Some idiot always come up with a different topic and the whole point of the article turns into another debate.
Go somewhere else then Crafty if you think its so disgraceful.
This article is on Cormac Hegarty & Charlie Mann so lets talk about them and not some moral issue.
Once again, Great blog JS, keep up the good work.
Where have you heard that about Dominech Johnny? If that is true then he should be fired instantly.
Good point Matt. I think it would be better if those people just sent JS an e-mail about their concerns or complains rather than making the comment section harder to read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Domenech
But if your a wikiphobe then just search Domenech and corpios on google and it will come up with thousands of links to news articles and blogs mentioning his distrust of Scorpios. Its the reason he dropped Pires from the french national side when he became manager.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Domenech
But if your a wikiphobe then just search Domenech and Scorpios on Google or any search engine and it comes up with thousands of links to news articles and blogs mentioning his distrust of scorpios. Its teh reason he dropped Pires when he took over as the French manager.
I agree it sounds ridiculious but their results under him have been good enough so i dont think its really an argument to sack him.
sry double posted…duno how that happened. Ignore the first one.
“Some idiot always come up with a different topic and the whole point of the article turns into another debate.”
I agree although im not really looking to ruel a debate, i was just looking for a yes/no/duno/dont care, or a combination of any. Once again i apologise for taking it off topic.
fuel a debate*
J , I am having a little problem getting the domain I am so sorry for the delay my internet connection is way too bad today that I even feel like crying but I am going to make sure I do it tomorrow even if it is from the cyber cafe ..I will not be able to check my messages until tomorrow from cyber cafe. you can be sure to get replies tomorrow
J Sanderson would you expect Hegarty to follow former Irish underage internationals Rhys Murphy, Conor Henderson, Matt Connolly and once he gets in Arsenal’s U18’s to switch from Ireland to England
Dont worry about it mate,
and i am not sure. I would expect he would continue with Ireland, and their were some reports recently that Henderson would actually switch back to Ireland.
Not sure at the moment
If Nasri doesn’t come to Arsenal,at least we still have Vela.With Walcott huge progressive recently,maybe has made Wenger to think so many times to sign Nasri.
Djourou in DM… Any comment?
J just to be clear in most cases your case study needs to be 16 or over or you are considered to be spreading pictures of a minor (unless you have the parents written consent) The rule is a little grey when it is someone in the public domain, but pictures of reserve or youth football can in some cases be considered illegal. Imagine going over your local park and taking pictures of young boys playing football. I know this is not your intention but you can’t be to careful these days. I work as a tv producer and work with these issues day in day out. The grey area is that these players are playing for Arsenal but when you get in the U16’s for example it may not be considered to be “in the public interest or domain” My advice would be to not show picture’s of U16’s players and if it’s a transfer story outside the EU make sure they are 16 or over.
mmm, sounds like the truth ^^
Are any of our players scorpios though? And come to that is any of Gallas, Clichy, Sagna, Traore or Evina for that matter Leos becaue he doesnt like Leo defenders aswell, think they show off too much to be relied upon.
There again im not sure if thats just central defenders or all defenders, id imagine full backs need to beable to show off if their going to be good full backs, so taht rules out all except Gallas who is in the squad so im guessing hes neither a leo or a scorpio.
^*^* he thinks. Sorry. Drunk. Good night. C u in the morning.
i keep on asking this question which teams and all of them or as many as u can tell me were in the atlanta cup and any news on the arsenal cup in america plz reply j sanderson or anyone who knows even a link or website would dp and keep up the good work best site ever plz plz plz plz plz reply