Arsenal: Future ‘roll call’ makes for exciting times

Arsenal have always boasted a lot of young talent, but it’s been awhile since they’ve all been so ready. Let’s do a roll call just to remind ourselves.

Arsene Wenger always prided himself on bringing tremendous young talents through the Arsenal system. But while his passion for it was undeniable, there have been very few successes in recent years. Alex Iwobi and Hector Bellerin are the only two that stand out, with Ainsley Maitland-Niles on the cusp as well.

However, a lot of the players that he was responsible for securing are now rising in the ranks, adding to the already emerging bunch, and what we have is a fantastic array of young talent, all on the brink of Premier League relevance.

Thinks about it. As it stands, Arsenal have Bellerin, Iwobi, Rob Holding and Lucas Torreira all under 23 years old. They’re already featuring regularly in the Premier League.

But they aren’t even the exciting ones. We know them. We know what they can do. There is still growth to undergo, but overall, they are known commodities. Young known commodities.

Dig deeper into that and you find the likes of Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who may be the most exciting of the bunch, who can play just about every position, and who is ticketed to greatness if only he can nail down his best position.

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But is he the most exciting? Reiss Nelson is tearing up the Bundelsiga, having scored six goals in such a short time over at Hoffenheim. I mean, he’s in the top ten. And he’s been there a couple months.

Is Nelson even the most exciting when we start talking about Emile Smith Rowe? Someone so good that he bypassed being loaned this year so that he cold find consistent playing time in midweek fixtures, where he has scored two goals already and shown himself to be a fantastic ball-handler.

But how can we focus on Smith Rowe when we get into the likes of Matteo Guendouzi? 19 years old and ready for action immediately upon making the move from Lorient to the Premier League. Not exactly a user-friendly move, but Guendouzi has made it look like a cakewalk, with nowhere to go but up.

And did I mention Eddie Nketiah? The goal-scoring machine that can’t stop scoring? Literally, can’t. When you put all of this together, the starting lineup of the future is almost completely filled out already.

I would agree with any case made that any of these guys is the most exciting. Because they all are the most exciting. And that is what we have to look forward to if we play our cards right.