Is Arsenal’s Academy Failing Wenger Or Vice Versa?

Recently on the Goonersphere Podcast I asked the guys why they thought we were persisting with Monreal at CB when we have Chambers in the squad and Hayden chomping at the bit for a chance. There were a variety of responses but ultimately it all came down to not having enough faith in the likes of Bellerin to step up if Chambers moved inwards or for Hayden to partner Mertesacker.

I should preface this by saying I have a lot of love and respect for Arsene Wenger however I’ve always fundamentally disagreed with one of his philosophies and one perception of him – both relate to youth players.

Wenger has famously said buying X player would kill Y player and that is something I have always found issue with because if that player is good enough they will ultimately make it into the team anyway and leaving their path unbarred kills a bit of their fighting spirit in my opinion. If they aren’t willing to stay and fight for a place in the squad, at least for a while, then I don’t really want them at Arsenal and it’s likely that lack of fighting spirit will reflect in their career elsewhere.

For example, Bentley and Diarra. Neither were willing to fight for a place at Arsenal and looked for easy football elsewhere before earning moves to bigger teams where eventually their careers stumbled and faltered.

I am no oracle of youth football but in my lifetime I can only remember one Arsenal youth player moving on in search of first team football who had a stellar career and that is Andrew Cole. Everyone else has slipped into obscurity of some form.

So, for me, to say that signing someone who would improve the team now would kill the career of a promising player is a little disingenuous because the player doing the killing had to fight to get himself into a position where he could be a killer and surely we want that sort of player over one who either allows himself to be killed or relies on the protection of a powerful master?

The other issue I mentioned is the perception that, at Arsenal, Arsene Wenger gives youth a chance. He does but rarely is it “our” youth. Scarcely do you find players at Arsenal who came up through the youth system. Even Kieran Gibbs did not join Arsenal until he was 14 however I think 19 is a fair age to say a player could be introduced into the first team and 5 years of education is plenty enough to put a claim on that player.

Since Wenger joined I can think of only Ashley Cole, Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere who have come from our youth system. Wenger has given plenty of chances to young players but few have been mostly educated by Arsenal. Arsene Wenger does give youth a chance but he hasn’t brought through many players from our youth system – discounting imported players aged 15-16.

I said on the podcast that a change of regime in the youth system will probably take 8-10 years to bear fruit as we’re looking at the players aged 9-12 developing under the new system and producing players ready for the first team. If you look at the players who went on to have careers away from Arsenal who were 9-12 when Wenger joined in 1996 or even 1998 with the introduction of the youth league you’ll be hard pressed to find one who was anywhere near worthy of the first team we had or indeed had a top level career elsewhere.

1998-2000 we saw players in the youth team like Stack, Taylor, Chilvers, Garry, Hoyte, Thomas, Harper, Sidwell, Bothroyd, Cole and Livermore. Ashley Cole was the sole proper graduate into the first team with Taylor and Stack providing back-up at best between the sticks.

Realistically 2005-2007 should have seen the academy roll out some talent for the first team and we saw the likes of Rene Steer, Paul Rodgers, Gavin Hoyte, Abu Ogogo, Shane Tracy, Jay Simpson, Fabrice Muamba, Henri Lansbury, Mark Randall, Kieran Gibbs, Emmanuel Frimpong, Sanchez Watt, Anthony Stokes, Craig Eastmond, Luke Ayling, Cedric Evina, Kyle Bartley (educated at Bolton), Jack Wilshere and Jay-Emmanuel Thomas.

Of those players only Wilshere and Gibbs are still at the club and only Bartley is still in the Premier League (off the top of my head). That’s a terrible return. Half of those players I only remembered when I read their names in old magazines this morning – that’s how little of an impact they made. It’s not as if we can look at 5-6 of those players and ponder “what if?”. Two players aside, none of them were good enough for Arsenal. Is that Wenger’s fault? It can’t be. He can be accused of not bringing players through the ranks but if that is what he has on offer then it’s no small surprise we can only recall three players making it in the past 18 years.

So is the academy failing the manager? There is an argument to be made there but I don’t know enough about our academy to make it. The appointment of Jonker suggests all was not well and a more robust approach to coaching our youth needed to be made but at best it will take him 5 years of hard work for us to see a player or two a year being good enough for the first team.

No team in world football brings through 2-3 players every season from their academy but teams like Barcelona, Ajax and Southampton of recent years have brought through a litany of great players, many of whom still play for their clubs and Arsenal are well short of the pace they have set. Even Louis van Gaal at United this season has given first team debuts to a host of youth products. Where is that trust at Arsenal?

If Bellerin is not ready for the first team then why was Jenkinson, a regular feature in the first team, sent on loan? If Bellerin is not considered Debuchy’s back up then who is? Is it Chambers? Surely he cannot be considered first-pick understudy for two positions?

If Hayden isn’t good enough for Arsenal yet why isn’t he out on loan? He’ll be 20 this season which gives him one more year before realistically he is past the point of making it. If you haven’t made it at Arsenal by the age of 21 the chances are you never will. Sending a player out on loan between the age of 20-21 often smacks of putting them on display for a sale. If Hayden isn’t ready now he should be on loan so he has one more season to have a crack at it. If he isn’t on loan then that should mean he is considered an immediate asset and should be trusted but I see none of those things. Instead I see trust being put into an averagely sized left back in an unfamiliar position and despite him performing well overall it just reeks to me.

It reeks of Arsenal not having good enough players which begs the question why didn’t we buy more? If we can’t rely on our youth players to back us up in times of crisis then surely we have to buy in ones we can?

From what I have seen of some of our youth players we have some talent on our hands but they need time to improve which either means a loan or given a chance to develop in the first-team. Maybe the manager doesn’t feel he can risk the wrath of the fans if those players don’t perform? What would it do to a young man’s confidence if he loses us a match and the crowd turns on him? As a collective group we can be quite nasty to our players at times and maybe they are being over-protected – but even that is wrong to me. How will they ever learn if we don’t let them make mistakes regardless of fan backlash?

I’ve rambled on quite a bit now and I’ve still not made up my mind where the fault lies or if it’s just one of those things but something is wrong with the youth at Arsenal – either they’re just not good enough or the manager isn’t willing to give them a chance.

Wenger said recently that 80% of strikers are coming from South America and it’s because street football is alive and well there and you have 10 year old boys playing with 15 year old boys and having to step up. Are we doing that here in our academies? Are we putting our younger players up against older age groups? Not just the next group up but the 2 or 3 groups up? Are our U12s practising against the U16s or U18s? Are we inviting our U16s to play against the first team? Surely putting our young attackers up against international level defenders will only improve them? The same for our young defenders. Getting them to train regularly against the speed, guile and footwork of Walcott, Cazorla, Alexis and Welbeck will improve them would it not?

Jonker has a great record of bringing through youth players and I’m sure he has thought of these things but between his predecessors and Wenger surely someone would have cottoned on to what Wenger said was the reason South American attackers are so good right now and applied it to our youth system? We’ve had 18 years to bring through players and frankly, 3 is not good enough.

Hopefully Jonker will be the difference and will make the transition from reserves to first team much easier but right now we are stretched to the point of breaking and we have young players willing to soak up some pressure – the biggest question though, is are they able to?

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