The end of the season is always a time for reflection and while Arsene Wenger will be picking through the bones of the first team’s season and wondering what the future holds, some of the younger fringe players at the club will be asking themselves the same question.
This season several of Arsenal’s most talented young reserve team players have spent long periods out on loan. Jay Simpson (41 appearances, 13 goals) has enjoyed a hugely successful spell with Queens Park Rangers and Henri Lansbury has played a key role in Watford avoiding the drop into League One making 38 appearances over the course of the season and scoring 4 goals. Jack Wilshere has also impressed scoring 1 goal in his 13 games whilst out on loan at Owen Coyle’s Bolton, so much so that Coyle has already intimated that he would like to bring the youngster back to the Reebok on a season long loan for the entire 2010-2011 campaign.
That is just some of the higher profile younger players who have spent periods out on loan this season. In all Arsenal have had 15 of their young professionals out on loan. Luke Ayling has made 4 appearances for Yeovil, Kyle Bartley 13 for Sheffield United, Pedro Botelho 25 for Celta Vigo (scoring 1 goal), Jay Emmanuel-Thomas 13 for Doncaster (scoring an impressive 5 goals), Kerrea Gilbert 10 for Peterborough, Gavin Hoyte 21 for Brighton, Havard Nordtveit 19 for Nurembourg, Mark Randall 18 for MK Dons, Gilles Sunu 9 appearances and 1 goal for Derby County, Wojciech Szczesny 27 appearances for Brentford and lastly Sanchez Watt has made 6 appearances for Leeds United.
Not to mention Philippe Senderos who spent the last few months of the season at Everton.
While for many of these young professionals, the experience will stand them in good stead as they seek to either make the grade at Arsenal, or secure a future for themselves elsewhere in the game, there are some intriguing questions to be asked about the most talented players in this group.
For example, will Wojciech Szczesny, who has been in superb form for Brentford, be given a chance in goal ahead of Almunia, Fabianski and Mannone next season? Will Jay Simpson and Henri Lansbury forge their way into the hugely competetive Arsenal first team squad? They are questions that need to be answered and not even the best online betting sites can give you the merest hint as to the answer.
It’s a crucial question that these young players need to answer. Experience at lower league sides is only useful to you if you can then put this to good use at your parent club. So the question is, have these youngsters prepared themselves for a future in the game with the Arsenal first team, or have they simply proved that to further their careers, they may be forced to move on?
So it is a crucial summer for some of these players who are now approaching 20 years of age. The question is do they feel another season in the Arsenal reserve team and only making fleeting first team appearances in the Carling Cup or meaningless European Games, or being sent out on loan again to a lower league club, will be more beneficial to them than trying to move on to a new club and make a fresh start?
I guess we will only find out the answer to that, over the course of the summer.