Their Present – Arsenal’s Future

Resident Blogger : SimonSEEZ

The time is now for these folks mate, more than ever before the spotlight seems to be growing on the youth teams of clubs. Arsenal, Southampton, Leeds and West Ham are few clubs that have really worked the Academy system very well producing outstanding talent for football. With the growing media presence around clubs and the access we now have to a lot more stuff that happens with our beloved teams we are in an era where we can see tomorrow’s talents today. Competitions like the U21 League, Next Gen series and the Youth Cup are really nice avenues for young players to get real match experience rather than just train in the reserves and play against each other.

Young Nico Yennaris

The club announced that Nico Yennaris has been sent on loan to Bournemouth and this affords him an opportunity to really get some needed experience to become a better player. Nico is a natural midfielder but also has the ability to play in the right side of defence and it should be interesting to see which position he gets most of his games during his loan spell. It seems a short loan spell deal but who knows whatever comes from such deals.

One thing is certain Nico is a Gooner at heart and I would really love him to have a career at the club. I am a sucker for fairy tale stories and no story beats Nico’s own as yet, from being a club mascot at age  seven and coming out with legendary Tony Adams in 2000 at Highbury to actually playing for Arsenal, he is all of our dreams in real life. Is there an Arsenal fan who hasn’t dreamt of wearing our famous red and white and scoring a goal that wins us the Champions League? Or coming on as a sub against Spurs when the game is 2-2 and scoring the winning goal in the 93^rd minute? Or scoring a hat trick in the FA Cup final at Wembley against Man United? If you haven’t had these dreams I am sorry I doubt your loyalty. You don’t want to know the kind of dreams I have had, many of them include punching Roy Keane or Joey Barton in the stomach during a game so hard they would throw up food they haven’t eaten yet. Nico hasn’t achieved any of this yet but hopefully he will come good for us in the near future.

‘Dreams do come true sometimes when you really want it and have been lucky as well.‘First of all you must really want it and Nico is one of these guys who has that.‘He is ready to give himself a chance with full commitment. Nico is a fantastic player, but also has an excellent attitude – his is a good example to follow for all of the fans who will turn up on Wednesday night.’

Wenger on Yennaris, before his Arsenal First Team Debut

This summer saw Arsenal let a whole lot of our youngsters go but the amount of talent we have got now in Hayden, Serge Gnabry, Thomas Eisfield, Chuba Akpom, Hector Bellerin (currently on loan to Watford), Chuks Aneke , Miyaichi  and Zelalem bodes well for the future of the club if they follow players like Wilshere to become awesome first team players. Talent isn’t just enough and you only have to look at someone like Niklas Bendtner to see what talent without any willingness to put in the hard work required to be successful as a top level footballer can produce.

Our Future? Maybe?

Having youth team players hang around First team guys is an excellent way to show them what they can become if they listen, apply what they have learnt and work hard. Football is a highly competitive game and to wear an Arsenal shirt means that someone has got to sit on the bench for you, hopefully our set of young guys will realize that and become well groomed future Arsenal greats and repay us for all the education we have given them rather than pierce our hearts like Cesc Fabregas, (come home Cesc)….they might be our future but the time is now for them!

Follow Arsenal Youth games on twitter @ArsenalLive. Find out all you need to know about our youth team players http://www.arsenal.com/academy/players .

Canoncrested wishes Nico Yennaris the best of luck out there! Which Youth team player has the best chance of making it into an Arsenal great. Share your thoughts with us on our comments section beneath.

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