Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur midfielder Ingólfur Sigurðsson has now returned to his native Iceland following a one week trial with Arsenal. The technical midfielder spoke to Young Guns to confirm he enjoyed his spell in North London, which included a strike for the Under 16’s on Saturday.
Sigurðsson has been subject of intense interest from club’s all over Europe after breaking through and turning in a handful of eye-catching performances in the Úrvalsdeild League. Both Arsenal and Manchester United offered him trials, with the 17-year-old deciding on joining the Gunners for training.
Ingólfur signed for KR – Iceland’s oldest and most prestigious club – after a season In Holland with Heerenveen. Last term he played three times in the first-team and showed enough promise to be named in the squad for the current campaign. ‘Ingo’ can play in any attacking position, but he is most at home as a left-sided central midfielder or on the wing.
Speaking this morning, Sigurðsson told Young Guns that he found the spell ‘great’ and was clearly pleased with the trial, in which Andrey Arshavin took him under his wing and looked after him. When quizzed about his experiences, he revealed:
“The trial went very well, it was really nice to train with a great club like Arsenal.”
“Yes, I scored the goal for Arsenal Under 16’s against Fulham on Saturday. It was great to wear the Arsenal shirt and I’m very pleased that I had the opportunity to train and play for Arsenal for one week.”
“I don’t know if they will sign me, I played very well and I don’t think how I play is a problem. The problem is that I have a contract to my team in Iceland (KR Reykjavik).”
More news is expected shortly as to whether Arsenal take their interest any further.
“Andrey Arshavin took him under his wing”?! Sure he’s from Iceland and not Lilliput?
A left winger is not a bad idea but how many youngster can we get I mean really
IF this works out for wenger then people will call him a genius if not then we all what will happen.
These players are all good players but I want to see more players coming through to the first team and becoming regulars.
That’s not how it works. They take a chance on promising youngsters, a few of whom should make it into the 1st team, like fab, song, denilson, clichy and arguably djourou have; and gibbs, wilshere, merida, vela and eastmond are likely to fairly soon. There will be several near misses and a large number of good young players developed by us. We sell these guys on and make money from them in the future as we did with bentley and others.
Its a smart system as it saves us money on the quality youngsters who make it, as they take the place of ready-made players who we’d have to sign for big money; but it also makes us money on the players who don’t quite make it here but are still good enough to make a career elsewhere.
If he is 17, how is it that he played and scored for the under 16’s?
He has only just turned 17, last weekend. Not sure how it works, maybe its to do with being under 16 at the start of the season. They don’t actually have a League, they just play friendlies anyway.
J – I think I’m right that it’s the players age on August 1st that determines what age group they can play in for the year.
Iceland is not known for its wealth of top footballers, but who knows this might be their gem.
On a completly different note, J do you have any more updates on the young Bolivan Samuel Galindo we have supposedly signed. It was reported on YoungGuns that a news agency had claimed he was an age cheat but I have since read reports that was a hoax i.e http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Arsenal-star-caught-up-in-passport-hoax-article293447.html any news on this J?
that looks like he’s an arsenal player.
I guess we will know more next season
Stu, I’ll have an update on that shortly.
He has left Arsenal now, and as far as I know, he’s not been signed despite that article claiming he was anyway.
Wrong. If you look at the number of people from Iceland, compared to how many professional footballers they have developed, they are in the top 3 in the entire world. There are a little over 300 000 people living in Iceland, and for them being able to have players both in the Championship and Permier League in great numbers, is absolutely amazing. They have a lot of players in the top leagues in Scandinavia aswell. There is a very good culture for football there, and I think we should give praise to that accomplishment, and not critizise.
Two Icelanders have played for the Arsenal’s first team, Abert Gudmundsson in the 40’s and Sigurdur Jonsson in the 80’s!
You should count how many Icelanders are playing the England right now!!
Aaron Gunnarson is a talented icelandic young player at Coventry City. Also it doesnt matter where you are from as long as you ar good. A lot of quality youngsters dont develope to the levels they could, simply because they arent put in the right situations to succeed. A young English talent has a greater chance of succeeding then a young Icelandic or American kid simply because the footballing structure is better in England. Here is the best example. Algeria is not known fo producing top class talent but a Algerian raised in france where there is a much better footballing structure and you get players like Zidane, Benzema and Nasri.
I sadly fear that Wenger is looking for a midfielder to replace Merdia….
J – have you got any update on the Merdia contract situation?
I think Merida will stay I have a feelng nothing more than but I really think he will stay.
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Didnt Wenger comment on Galindo at the official site reffering to him as “the new boy”, talking about him going on loan in Spain?
Any news about the Sterling situation? Are we still the leading the chase?
Lovw the site and the new design is wicked! Great stuff!
I think this happened after that
I also want to know how we are doing with Sterling ?
Yep, the article said ‘as soon as he arrives’. He had already arrived, he has be on trial. So they must have meant as soon as he signed, meaning the deal wasn’t done.
I re-published the news from the Bolivian newspapers and everything went very quiet. He stayed on trial for about two weeks, played one game and then left. He hasn’t been at Arsenal for a number of weeks now.
And cheers mate :)
Why do people come here and criticize wenger’s approach to player transfers this site is meant to be for all our young acquisitions, BTW love the new design
Because they are so tired of being bullied by their schoolmates that are supporting United. And they want to use every oportunity possible to slam Wenger and ridicule the young talents and the club policy as that is what their mates at school does. Its hard being a 17 year old boy you know. Especially when you are an arsenal fan and everyone thinks wenger is a looney. Its alot easier to just “go with the crowd” and diss wenger too instead of sticking up for him and the team. You know what they say, there is the easy way and the right way, most people choose the easy way,…
PS: Oh and you feel like a man if you can slander Wenger on an arsenal web page, especially if you can do it on a page like this where people usually tend to be happy with yout policy..
pps: this is a grat page! Keep up the good work :)
Samuel Galindo has been signed but it wont be official until he turns 18.Gai Assulin and Christian Eriksen will be the next two to come in.
you seem so sure O.o
Do you know about the Assulin thing as a fact, or is it just i feeling Sean? In case of the first alternative how do you know it? He looks a great talent so I would be delighted
You seem so sure,how do you know these things,are you an undercover spy???????????
I am.
hope you are not talking shir!!! Assulin and ERiksson would be great!!!
It seems that Gai Assulin is actually under contract with Barcelona until 2012. And to get him, any club would have to pay 20 €. I don’t see Arsenal doing that, do you?
…any club would have to pay 20 M€… (of course, not 20 €!)
Now what happens. He scored a goal which is good. Now what? WQhat are his chances of makiing the big club?
Ahhh you again. (you being Sean) The profit has returned!! :D I am only being half -sarcastic. I mean it takes a mighty brave man to make predictions like those, on a site like this doesn’t it?? Unless said man has inside knowledge, that is!! :D Well if you are wrong, I still admire your bravery lol.
how comes u so sure abt this… how reliable is ur information?
His deal is running out i Barcelona isnt it? He would be free right?
If wenger let Arshavin to take care of Ingólfur Sigurðsson he must be very very special and wenger must want this guy. I think he will come but if he was that good he should been tested in U18 game atleast. he is after all 17 now. The danish guy from ajax didn’t look so amazing to me.
I think Merida wants to stay because he loves Arsenal but in the end will leave anyway. He should be ahead of walcott, in fact a handful of players should be ahead of walcott!
Actually i thought the Danish guy (Eriksen) from Ajax looked very promising. Doesn’t seem fast or strong but the way he took his goals in that clip (left and right foot) oozed class. He can take set-pieces and pick a pass. You could tell he’s a very, very intelligent player just from those snippets of him. He, in a funny way (as it was DB10 who supposedly recommended him to Wenger) reminded me of Bergkamp.
He can shoot but I didn’t saw so many amazing passes. I didn’t saw many good simple passes either. I didn’t saw so many good runnings.. I just saw him got the pass but you can’t do a highlight of a guy receiving passes from others. If he is the new bergkamp we would have seen good passes from him but the highlights was mostly shooting. Next time Ajax play I will watch carefully after him. Highlights is not always fair.
Our new bergkamp is Wilshere. As long as we have Lansbury and Jet in the club we should not let anyone be ahead of them because they are so great and truly world class talents. They are about to become world class seniors. Lansbury is premier league class already and I’m sure JET is too. They have Arsenal in their heart and nothing should take that away. I’m sure they will be legends for the club.
spot on jom!!! JET, Wilshere and Lansbury are way ahead of him!!
at first glance he doesn’t look too impressive, but he’s got a good eye for that cheeky goal people don’t see at the first instant, and also for spaces and when and how to draw defenders out of position. and i could see why bergkamp was impressed – that guy is like a young version of himself!
That Eriksen guy is a quality. I have seen him twice now for Ajax.
Hes got pace, brilliant vision, two footed. He kind of reminds me of smaller version of Alxander Hleb with the shooting ability.
BTW HOWS PEDRO BOTELHO BEEN PLAYING FOR CELTA VIGO? HAS REPORTS ON HIM ON POSITIVE NEWS ON HIM? I EXPECT HENRI LANSBURY, KYLE BARTLEY, HAVARD NORDTVEIT TO COME BACK NEXT SEASON AND BATTLE FOR THE FIRST TEAM SQUAD
Please never begin your blog with “Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur midfielder Ingólfur Sigurðsson” ever again.
hahahaha yes, i took a step back and thought to myself “what’s happened to this blog..why has it turned in a jibberish post?” before i read on (or actually simply skipped ahead cos there’s no reading that first line).
Sean was talking shit!!!
http://www.rs.goal.com/en/news/462/netherlands/2010/02/24/1805494/ajax-reach-verbal-agreement-with-youngster-christian-eriksen?
(I was Critic, Kritikos and Bedeuro)
I aint been here for a month or so, but now the blog is better and easier to read then when u set it up,
J, the Daily Mail have nicked your story mate
Samuel Galindo is playing a friendly vs. Mexico in this moment. I´ll be watching him…
and? did the reporters said he is Arsenal bound?
J. do you know if this is true? It is said Wenger was really keen on Sergio Canales but he moved for the big money to RM!! What a wast of talent,. He wont get that much play time at this shit club!! Anyway this islandic winger looks absolutely brillant. Looks like a similar player as Giggs!!
Therefore no wonder ManUSA is really keen on him!!
He will stay in racing santander until he is 20 or so. So he will get plenty of playing time by then. Raul will be gone by then
canales isnt a striker!! more of a 2. striker!! But we have Wilshere :-)!!!
whats happening with steerling ??
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/thomas-cruise-signs-new-contract
Thomas Cruise signs contract extension
Good
Would expect to see Luke Freeman in the big teams in the series soon
He snubbed a Man.Utd trial request in the summer because he is a Liverpool fan
P.s. Translation:Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur = FC Reykjavik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isrybsmpkK4&feature=player_embedded
Nice
what is the strength of barcelona? the midfield…. period. plus the addition of one or two superstars (messi and ibra). the cohesiveness of that unit cordinates the back and the forward line. we stock up on midfielders because we need to find the perfect mix you freaking nitwits….. xavi and iniesta were not playing on the same thing forever they had to mix. hence the reason ramsey is being bled in…. two maestros and a DM like song, all we need is a strong forward line and i bet you that defence would be shored up. The midfield is the transition from defence to midfield. You get a pipeline of solid midfielders, you get definitely have a solid team….
I think Barca’s strength is that all its players are in their prime if we can keep this bunch of people together (atleast the most important ones) then we will have a stronger team than Barca
And I think our midfield right now is probably the best in EPL right now
this is our midfield
Diaby —— Song ———– Fabregas
What our problem is that our players get injured a lot and we dont have ready made replacements
The reason they injured is because of the direct play teams play against us