Arsenal: Restocking depleted youth ranks a just priority

Arsenal are supposedly weighing up a move for two young starlets. This has to be a priority in the wake of the trimming.

Arsene Wenger was certainly a manager who enjoyed loading up on the talented young players that would, ideally, drive Arsenal into the future. However, it can’t be ignored that he had trouble developing those players at times.

Perhaps he was just too nurturing, or perhaps they just weren’t good enough, but they just continued falling by the wayside. Highly-touted names like Yassin Fortune, Jon Toral, and now even Kelechi Nwakali and long-time favorite Jeff Reine-Adelaide never saw the light of day in the Premier League, and are essentially unheard of now.

All of the “big time” prospects that Wenger loaded up on have failed. Krystian Bielik remains, but even he looks on short leash, and could be dealt before we know it.

There are still some exciting names like Reiss Nelson, Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith Rowe, but we need some new young stars to get excited about. Mainly because it will be Emery’s first chance to show how to develop young players in contrast to what Wenger was able to do.

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According to reports, Sven Mislintat may be readying to swoop for the first two young “Emery men.”

The two names being tossed about are Kai Havertz of Bayer Leverkusen and Ismaila Sarr of Rennes. I’m not going to pretend to know any more than the next guy about these two, suffice to say they are very highly regarded, and that is all I need to know. Wenger has taught me not to read too much into a young talent until they start making headways, because otherwise we end up in a situation like with Jon Toral, where I was ranting and raving for him and he was never given the chance.

The point behind all of this is that the youth system is being replenished. A lot of “top” talents were cut away and left to fend for themselves at lower tier clubs while the exciting talents were pushed up to Premier League relevance.

Leaving very few “top” talents still on the youth roster. That is where these two fit in, to showcase, again, what Emery can do with young talents (and what Mertesacker can do) as opposed to what Wenger was unable to do.

Or maybe it vindicates Wenger’s ability, who knows. Time will tell.