Arsenal Vs Vorskla: How many youngsters, not which

Unai Emery flooded the Arsenal team with youngsters in Thursday night’s 3-0 win over Vorskla. The brilliant consequence is how many were used, not necessarily which impressed.

Arsenal were mightily impressive in Thursday night’s 3-0 win over Vorskla Poltava to secure qualification into the knockout stages of the Europa League as winners of the group. Unai Emery did not take any chances with his team selection: a myriad of stars were rested, the team primarily consisted of reserves and youth prospects.

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What was so pleasing about the win was that it was the young players who were integral to the victory. 18-year-old Emile Smith Rowe scored the first goal. 19-year-old Joe Willock finished the scoring with his best Thierry Henry impression. 19-year-old Eddie Nketiah led the line admirably for the whole 90 minutes.

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This was very much a youth-inspired victory. Even those that came off the bench for their debuts in the second half showed glimpses of their talent. Bukayo Saka, around whom there is a lot of buzz among the Arsenal youth circles, was direct and pacy when dribbling with the ball at his feet. Zech Medley had a couple of lovely touches, even pulling out a dragback to send a Vorskla player flying when he was the deepest player.

All in all, it was quite difficult to single out any above another. There was plenty to be hopeful about regarding almost every player that took to the pitch at one point or another. And that, actually, is kind of the point. It should not be a question of which youngsters impress or show potential for the future. It should be a question of how many.

Developing young talent is a painfully inconsistent and turbulent venture. It is difficult to predict, there are plenty of pitfalls to fall through, many players who show great potential at 18 will never deliver on it and many late developers do not get going until their early 20s.

Ultimately, therefore, it is a numbers game, a case of playing the probabilities and amassing the greatest amount of talent possible, giving them all the coaching and opportunities possible, and then simply hoping that one or two actually end up making it as first-team contributors. Realistically, of this current crop of young talent, if one or two become regular starters for Arsenal, then that will be a success. The fact that Emery has five or six to work with, and not one or two, just helps with the numbers game.

Now, this is not to say that all these players should be nameless commodities that are thrust into some machine to build prototypical footballers and it doesn’t matter which make it out of the machine and which don’t. Football is not such a heartless sport. But when it comes to the ruthless edge of top-tier sport, there is an element of it doesn’t really matter which one/s make it, as long as one or two do.

What Arsenal have with this current crop of youngsters is great potential to invest in. Defenders, midfielders, forwards, they have a great array of talent that can all be developed and, one day, possibly become first-team starters. That is a very blessed position to be in, and it is because of how many young talents they have, not necessarily which ones.