Arsenal Completes Signing Of High Rated Star, To Announced Soon

Before the resurgence of Arsenal as one to compete with in the transfer market, the youth policy under the Arsene Wenger management made much more impact than now that the competitive level of the game as towered higher. However, as the need to compete for titles heightened, the need to hit the transfer market every time there’s a deficiency in the Arsenal squad became expedient. This is certainly at the expense of the development of the players within the Arsenal youth ranks. These days, one would hardly find a graduate from the youth set-up in the current Arsenal senior team. Kieran Gibbs, Wojciech Szczesny and Jack Wilshere are the only players who graduated from the youth team, named in the starting 11, in recent times. This is the reason why the report that Arsenal has handed the very first professional contract to 17-year-old highly rated defender, Stefan O’Connor, could be referred to as a good one.

Arsenal starlet, O’Connor would now have high hopes for his future development and most especially an accelerated promotion into the first team with the likes of Isaac Hayden, if the current injury crisis persists. The 17-year-old player is a central defender that has impressed in the lower levels at Arsenal so much that he has been drafted into training with the first team this season. The player who would expectedly undergo tutelage, not only from the coaches but would watch and serve as an understudy to Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal and even teenager, Calum Chambers, is said to have impressed Arsene Wenger well enough to be handed a contract. Still with the youth side, Stefan O’Connor may just be the next player to make his way into the Arsenal first team from the Academy especially now, that departures and injuries have depleted the Arsenal defence line.

Arsenal Academy not only refines raw talents and turns them into super stars, they also graduate some of them into the Arsenal senior team and some are sold to other big clubs for their careers to blossom. The Arsenal Academy has produced world class players of yesteryears which includes Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Ray Parlour, Paul Merson, Liam Brady, the current coach, David O’Leary, Niall Quinn, Pat Rice, who have all retired, some have served and others still serving at various capacities in the football world. Also graduates of the Academy who are still actively playing include, Cesc Fabregas, Johan Djourou, Kieran Gibbs, Jack Wilshere, Emmanuel Frimpong, Wojciech Szczesny, Oguzhan Ozyakup, just to mention a few.

Now, Arsene Wenger would be expected to keep an eye on the U-21 player with the intent of fast tracking his development and probably integrated into the first team. It would now be left to the teenager to put in more effort and increase his pace of learning in the Academy and the first team, so as to achieve his desired goals. With Arsenal out of the Capital One Cup, which Wenger uses to test youngsters like O’Connor, the FA Cup may see the 17-year-old tested this season, if he continues his good form.