Arsenal Wonderkid Vlad Dragomir Inching Towards First Team

Arsenal’s U18 has welcomed wonderkid Vlad Dragomir. After just a handful of appearances, what is the verdict?

With all of Arsenal’s youth footballers getting featured in or around the actual first-team, this season has the feel of one where a lot of our youngsters are going to start giving us a taste of how close they really are. Krystian Bielik has been the one to impress the most, as he was the only youngster to actually look promising against Sheffield Wednesday.

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Abroad, Jon Toral has been on his game, bringing pride to a shoddy stock of Arsenal loan products. Daniel Crowley has been sent home, Serge Gnabry has been demoted and Gedion Zelalem has been chastised. Emiliano Martinez is leading the known world in saves, so that’s a good thing.

Up until recently, the name Vlad Dragomir was kind of like a myth. He was a Romanian wonderkid that Wenger pulled from the dust. There was little footage on him and very little known.

But recently, he has been making some headway. Dragomir has now featured in a handful of Arsenal U18 appearances and he has produced a decent amount of highlight-worthy passes and plays. Take a look:

Of course, the highlights never show the full story. Dragomir is still only 16 and as such, he has been struggling a bit as well, but these little bursts of brilliance remind me of Mesut Ozil. When the German first came to Arsenal, he struggled. Massively at times. But he would put forth these little bursts of brilliant play. He would randomly excel at dribbling and passing and he would remind us what he was all about. It was just a matter of bridging the gaps between bursts.

Now that that has happened, we are reaping the rewards.

The same can work for Dragomir. Although he compared himself to Toni Kroos, using Mesut Ozil as a guidepost would serve him well. He has a ton of maturing and learning to undergo, but the fact that at 16 he is already showing these bursts, there is a lot to be excited about.

Next: Arsenal's Top 10 Prospects

To make things even more exciting, the young Romanian was training with the Arsenal side prior to the West Brom match. No doubt plying his trade against Ozil and Alexis Sanchez and seeing them tick will help Dragomir iron out the kinks in his play.

Our top ten Arsenal prospect list is going to need to be edited soon if Dragomir keeps it up.