Emile Smith Rowe’s likeness to Arsenal cult hero

Comparisons in football tend to fall foul to lazy expressions of ability. As opposed to highlighting what qualities make a player sing, they can be simplistic combinations of names based on age, origin or position. So, what next? Emile Smith Rowe and his likeness to an Arsenal cult hero, of course.

This transfer window has already taken supporters on a ride with more than a month left to play out. Two necessary squad additions have been brought in and a few faces deemed unnecessary have bid farewell.

Internal additions, if there is such a thing, have taken centre stage. Kieran Tierney has penned a new contract that will see him stay well beyond his inevitable captaincy, joining youngsters along the way, with Emile Smith Rowe’s extension sparking jubilation and bestowing him with the legendary No. 10 shirt.

Glorious club alumni have donned the jersey, thus sparking immediate comparisons. Yet, it’s a man who donned the No. 7 who offers shades of stardom seen in the Hale Ender: Tomas Rosicky.

Emile Smith Rowe’s likeness to Arsenal cult hero Tomas Rosicky unmissable as Hale End star inherits No. 10 shirt and signs long-term contract

Never more than a cult hero given his varied success and dispiriting injury record, what the little Mozart did with and without the ball at his feet draws the occasional double take for identification.

Smith Rowe is a unique talent: engaging movement, sixth sense for dangerous space, gliding technique and always an option for the pass. A 20-year-old with the mind and mentality of someone with hundreds of Premier League matches under his belt.

Rosicky wasn’t much different. Forever on the move at a frantic tempo, his ability to orchestrate that around him helped conduct some of the best football seen in the post-Highbury era. With him and Aleksandr Hleb on either side of the midfield, they were worth the admission price alone.

The one-touch play and telepathic understanding was the byproduct of his ability to canvas the pitch in installments two or three passes ahead of the game. What Rosicky did personified Wengerball. Someone whose true felicity was exuded every time he took to the turf.

“If you love football, you love Tomas Rosicky”

Smith Rowe has that aura. The unbridled joy and honour to don the Arsenal red and white. It has no higher standing in his professional life and that transfers into his methods.

Every touch is a dexterous shift in body shape to move beyond his marker, and the following pass one designed to wound the opposition. Those curved movements with glue-like ball control also hark back to the days of Paul Merson, another legendary No. 10.

Noticing the dashes of little Mozart in the Croydon-born playmaker is testament to where his career is at 20 years old.

Rosicky was beset with injuries and struggled to replicate his on-field prowess into goals and assists. The latter two elements are part of the responsibility that comes with the number Smith Rowe has inherited, but nobody foresees him falling short.

He is his own man. Should this steam train-like trajectory persist with its huge upward curve then comparisons like those mentioned will no longer be relevant. Like the Czech, Smith Rowe has already completed some missions with flying colours: he’s adored by the fans, etches beaming smiles on all those who tune in, and he hates Tottenham.

The platform is there to be having this discussion in ten years’ time, in reverse; watching a new academy star who reminds us of a certain Smith Rowe. He may be still a kid and his experience of first team football in its infancy, but he has all the ingredients forge his own success story.