Arsenal’s Under 18’s begin the defence of their Premier Academy League Trophy tomorrow with a mouth watering play off semi-final against Manchester United at their Carrington Training complex.
The Gunners are the winners of Group A while United won Group C. The victorious outfit will go on to face either Nottingham Forest or Leicester City in the final. Ahead of tomorrow’s big fixture, Young Guns caught up with “United Youth” editor Nick for a chat about all things youth between the two club’s.
You can catch Young Guns’ views on the encounter a little later over at United Youth.
Nick, Arsenal will face Manchester United in the Premier Academy League semi-finals – Your first impressions of the tie?
“It’s a really exciting one definitely. Just being in these playoffs is exciting in itself – the Youth Cup’s always the priority every year and the league games tend to see a lot of rotation and experiments, so to have still somehow won our group convincingly with a terrific run at the end of the season and to have this extra game and a chance to maybe play for another trophy is great and a real bonus.”
“Then you factor in the opposition and it’s even more captivating. The way youth football is you get used to playing the same teams over and over again – we’ve played Bolton six times across various levels this season, for example. Blackburn 5, Liverpool 5, Man City 5 and so on. I’m sure it’s the same for Arsenal in the south, and you see the same teams and the same sets of players so often you start to feel like you almost know each and every one of them personally – it all gets a bit stale and humdrum sometimes. So to play a team like Arsenal, who obviously have a big reputation as far as youth football is concerned (probably the biggest reputation along with United) and a lot of hype around them, and yet are basically an unknown quantity because we so rarely (if ever) play each other.”
“Overall it’s refreshing and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Manchester United’s youth system is probably the most recognised in England due to the David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes etc year, but how has the system been since then? and how does this current crop compare?
“That crop of players was a one-off, undoubtedly. I’m not sure any club will bring through so many kids from the same group at the same time who all go on to have such successful careers ever again, it was freakish really. That’s set an almost impossible standard for us to follow I guess – you hear a lot of people say the production line dried up after that but I think the vast majority of clubs would have been happy to bring through players like Wes Brown, John O’Shea and Darren Fletcher in the years after that, and Jonny Evans more recently, as well as lots of other guys who’ve gone on to have decent careers elsewhere.”
“As for the current crop, there’s a lot of excitement about them. It’s always hard to tell how things will pan out but certainly in my time watching the Under 18s, over the last 10-12 years or so, this is the most impressive group of players we’ve had at this level. The intake of first-years this season has been particularly impressive. With 15 new scholars – which is the most I can remember – and the majority of them local lads and lots of them really impressing already for club and country. For the first time I can remember it’s really hard to pick our strongest Under 18 XI when everyone’s fit. There’s lots of quality and strength in depth. That said, there has to be caution because it’s so much harder for top clubs to bring youngsters through now than it was back when the Beckham/Scholes crop emerged – the stakes are so high and patience is so low these days.”
What’s the impression of Arsenal’s setup and their way of developing players?
I think Arsenal maybe have impossible standards to live up to as well, in as much as the media (and maybe some of the more excitable fans) create a lot of hype about the club’s youth setup, resulting in unrealistic expectations and neutrals getting sick of hearing it. When you cut through all that, from an outsider’s perspective, you can’t really fault the way Arsène Wenger and his staff do things from a development point of view. More English youngsters than given credit for, the right way of playing drummed into kids from an early age, a progressive attitude with regards to youth coaching methods (sadly one of very few clubs you can say that about in this country) and obviously no hesitation giving kids chances if they’re deemed good enough. Can’t really comment at any great length about individuals in the Arsenal setup beyond those I see when following our kids on international duty (Afobe and Aneke with England etc) but clearly it seems like another strong crop.
Turning our attentions to the actual game, who’s the stars of this current crop and who will be influential during the fixture?
“Well first of all two of the stars who won’t be – French midfielder Paul Pogba, who’s suspended, and Italian attacking midfielder Davide Petrucci, who’s had a nightmare season with injury. They’d probably both start if available, but midfield’s probably our strongest area in terms of depth.”
“Can say with about 95% certainty that the lineup will be this (4-4-2): Devlin; Brown, Wootton, Thorpe, Fryers; Ajose, Tunnicliffe, Morrison, Brady; King, Keane.”
“The stars? Joshua King’s probably our best player when he’s on his game – he’s a striker from Norway. He’s lightning quick, powerful, decent in the air, technically very good and scores plenty of goals. He’s far too good for this level (he’s already made his debut for the first team) but is very injury prone so is being brought along gently. He has the odd game where he doesn’t look interested or nothing comes off for him, but more often than not defences just can’t cope with him. Alongside him should be Will Keane, who’s a very different type of forward – not too quick, quite slight of build but great class on the ball, can drop deep and link the play but is also lethal in the box. He’s top scorer with 13 goals from 21 games, has got a couple at reserve level too and was named Academy Player of the Year on Tuesday night.”
“The other player I’d single out is probably Ravel Morrison. I’d guess lots of your readers will have heard of him, both because he’s been really hyped by some English journos (think Henry Winter said he was a better prospect than Wilshere or Rodwell when he’d played about ten Under 18 games, ridiculous really) and because he’s been in the press for some off the field problems. In terms of pure ability, he’s probably the best to come through the academy since Paul Scholes and since he returned from a long injury layoff a month or so ago, he’s started to channel that ability the right way. He’s quick, skillful, scores goals from midfield, creative and is that nightmare prospect for defences – someone prepared to run with the ball from central midfield.”
“Elsewhere, Ajose’s quick, tricky and gets goals (crucial ones too) from the wing; Brady’s another goalscoring wide player but he’s only just back from injury so might not be too influential. Tunniclife’s a really good all-round box-to-box midfielder. The defence is pretty solid, Thorpe’s the best prospect but the older Wootton is the leader. That central pairing is maybe a little susceptible to pace. The two full-backs are quicker but don’t offer too much going forward. Devlin’s much improved in goal and has become a bit of a penalty-saving specialist this season, but his kicking can be a bit suspect.”
Finally, a prediction?
“It’s tricky to make any sort of informed prediction with Arsenal being such an unknown quantity to us, and vice versa I guess. From the two teams’ records and what I know of the Arsenal side, I can certainly see it being a close one (he says from atop the fence), wouldn’t surprise me at all if it ended up going to penalties. If someone’s going to win it in the 90, I’d hope that with home advantage and the attacking form we’ve been showing lately that we could maybe just sneak it, but I’d not be surprised if it went the other way (this fence is quite comfy really). One thing I will go out on a limb to say – there’ll be two teams going out there looking to play attractive, attacking football, a nice change from some of the negative tactics you see some teams adopt at Under 18 level, and hopefully that’ll mean we get an entertaining game like the Youth Cup semi a few years ago.”
Kick off is at 11am tomorrow morning. Manchester United’s official TV channel MUTV are broadcasting it live, and of course, Young Guns will have full coverage.
