Arsenal: Consistency the next step for young guns
Arsenal are encouraging a whole crop of young guns to fight for first-team places. As the talent breaks through, the next step in their development is to prove they can be consistent.
There is little expectation on young players when they first break into the senior team. Not tasked with any real responsibility and often featured in matches of lesser importance, the desperation for immediate performance is not quite as intense as it is for their veteran teammates.
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Because of this, brief glimpses of brilliance are enough for them to earn roles in the squad and heighten the excitement of the fanbase. They do not have to ready; they simply have to prove that they could one day be ready.
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But as they develop and forge greater roles in the team for themselves, there is a shift of emphasis. Moments are no longer enough. The team requires more, and the fans expect more. The transition from prospective young player to regular starter has begun.
This process can be explained in a very simple manner: young players becoming consistent. What separates the great players from the talented ones is the consistency of their production. Every young professional footballer is capable of curling a shot into the top corner from the edge of the penalty area if they happen to catch it right. Heck, most amateur footballers are. But can they reproduce the skill over and over again?
It is this shift in expectation and production that many of Arsenal’s young players must now enact. There is a wonderful crop of burgeoning talent at the club, but at this stage, brief moments of brilliance are enough to pease the increasingly lofty expectations. If they are to ever become regular starters, however, they must develop that crucial quality: consistency.
This week, 20-year-old Matteo Guendouzi discussed his meteoric rise to prominence in the heart of the Gunners midfield with Arsenal Player. He spoke about a whole range of topics, but one grabbed the attention: what is now expected of him and what he must do to meet those expectations. Here is what he said:
"“I think that I have a certain status in the team now. I have been able to show that I can perform well so I now need to be consistent, always help the team, always give it my best and always play well on the pitch. I think I improved and that my level increased a lot this year. I really think that I have hit many milestones and moved up a good few notches. I am even better than last season. My objective is to always keep making progress and that is what I will do in the years to come, keep on improving so I can be the best.”"
Guendouzi is the perfect illustration for this process. In his first season at the club, he was all energy and passion and hair and hair-raising performances. But he also suffered from ill-discipline, fatigue in the closing months of the season, and went through peaks and troughs of form throughout the year. Now in his second year, and under a new head coach, he is searching for a more measured approach and consistent performance level.
This consistency is what will separate the young talents from the senior performers. Those of the Arsenal crop that can deliver week-in, week-out will be the ones that make it at the club; those that cannot will only ever be seen as what could have been.