Arsenal U21 Promotion Has Sketchy Side Story

Arsenal’s U21 side gained promotion, but isn’t it a bit tainted that it took four of Arsenal’s senior team players to drive the team to the honor?

On the surface, hearing that Arsenal’s U21 side was promoted to the first division is grounds for excitement. And it really is. There are so many promising young men on that team. Krystian Bielik, Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Chris Willock all started for Arsenal against Aston Villa’s U21s and came away with a 3-1 victory.

But to be completely fair, what Arsenal did was kind of well, skeezy. I don’t know what that word means because it’s not even a word, but it just felt like it sounded right for the occasion.

Accompanying Arsenal’s U21 side, the Bielik’s and the Reine-Adelaide’s, were Santi Cazorla, Joel Campbell, Francis Coquelin and Calum Chambers.

Chambers I can forgive. He is 21 and has played a very minimal role with Arsenal this year. But those other three are just three guys that Wenger has removed from his own starting XI. It wreaks of Wenger wanting to win something, so he threw his left over senior team members into the team to ensure a victory.

Aston Villa could have done the same, as their season has been over since April, but they didn’t. They left it up to their U21 players like it was designed.

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It makes me feel a little, well, skeezy for being excited about the promotion because in my opinion, it was gained with a forced hand. Arsenal’s youth sides, with how much has been invested in them, should be able to fight their own battles. They shouldn’t have to be babied to promotions.

Now granted, it was Willock who caused the most trouble and Mavididi scored the other two that Willock didn’t. Plus, it took a season-long effort to get into this position. But all those things considered, shouldn’t the team have been allowed to earn promotion on their own? Ben Sheaf was denied a starting spot for Joel Campbell when it had been Sheaf who had earned the spot all season and deserved to play a role in their ultimate progress or demise.

Maybe I’m sounding too much like a purist, but it just rubs me the wrong way that Wenger lacked faith in his youth products to secure their own promotion. So much so that he force fed their starting XI four of his senior team members. Just to be safe.

Next: 5 U21s Who Could Make First Team

Is anyone else bothered, even in the slightest, by this?

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