Not as injury prone and stupid I hope.
This is beginning to piss me off too. The step up to the premier league is far greater than people realise.
The Arsenal kids, if nothing else, know how to play the Arsenal way. They should be technically competent and hungry at the very least. That's what gives fans hope with regards to them.
Depends really.
I don't think anyone has a divine right to start in the first team if they haven't done enough to earn the opportunity - and ironically I have already seen a good chunk of the players already in the first team play badly for a consistent stretch of time, so I at least want us to give the younger players a chance. I don't expect them to be starters but if we are a team that purports to give them chances, then we should be doing that more than we are in the absence of a year long transfer window. I also don't agree that nobody from the U23s should be in our team, especially not with players like Mhkitaryan who've played badly more often than he's played well - which leads to:
Is it bad form, or just plain bad? How many bad games before you want to see something different? How long can you have a player in clearly bad form continually getting starts while the player behind him is playing out of his skin in every game he gets even at a lower level and the manager ignores him? Like I said - they don't need to become starters now, but I'd rather use them as an option rather than egregariously force the issue with the player who isn't performing
This I do not agree with. Willock walked into Belgrade away and dominated the midfield having not even had a bedding in period with the U23s. He tailed off towards the end of the season and had a poor game v Newcastle, but mentality is not a problem with Joe Willock - I've seen him in enough games to see it. I don't think there's as much separating the two players as people think. Guendouzi has done exceptionally well to acclimatize as well as he has, even with the overblown lapses of form his detractors hold onto - however, I don't think Willock would have fared worse, and I think he's a lot more ready than people think. I think a good chunk of our younger players are more ready than people think they are, they just need the right opportunity to prove it.
It would be tough to be as surprisingly good mentally as Guendouzi has been. But yeah, good to know you think he can handle the pressure. Willock seems very promising in many ways.
He should have gotten games this season to be honest. I've been saying he's underrated by impatient fans. That said, the game was almost done at that point, but he fashioned some good opportunities for himself that could have resulted in us mounting a better comeback, one of which he really should have scored - especially considering the goalscoring season he has had.
That midfield would be a bit slow IMO, but decent technically.
