Country: Nigeria
Player:Saliba
I think he's trolling.Managed to praise and diss all in the same paragraph, the pride on some of you's
-
! ! ! IMPORTANT MESSAGE ! ! !
Discussions about police investigations
In light of recent developments about a player from Premier League being arrested and until there is an official announcement, ALL users should refrain from discussing or speculating about situations around personal off-pitch matters related to any Arsenal player. This is to protect you and the forum.
Users who disregard this reminder will be issued warnings and their posts will get deleted from public.
Emile Smith Rowe: The Croy-10 Cruyff
- Thread starter Aevi
- Start date
- Replies 2,107
- Views 181,730
- Status
Country: Nigeria
Player:Saliba
Symbia
Active Member
One great thing about his game is his attitude, the ability to stand with his shoulder on high even when the team is not doing very well.
Check his match vs Chelksi, when the whole team was hiding he never stopped pushing forward, dribbling them all the way.
When Delph was subbed vs Everton, the intention was to limit our midfield movements and interchange. He dragged Delph all over the pitch, with some funny moments of megs.
The comparison with Rosicky, he doesn't have Thomas's shouting prowess but he is a bit better manipulator of the ball especially in tight spaces. Both are very awesome in one touch play, interchange with players and forward oriented plays.
My only fear is him being targeted by epl thuggish players.
Check his match vs Chelksi, when the whole team was hiding he never stopped pushing forward, dribbling them all the way.
When Delph was subbed vs Everton, the intention was to limit our midfield movements and interchange. He dragged Delph all over the pitch, with some funny moments of megs.
The comparison with Rosicky, he doesn't have Thomas's shouting prowess but he is a bit better manipulator of the ball especially in tight spaces. Both are very awesome in one touch play, interchange with players and forward oriented plays.
My only fear is him being targeted by epl thuggish players.
Wounded Healer
Active Member
wth with the news? hope there is nothing behind it and he will sign a new contract soon...
Country: England
Apologies for those waiting on contract talks updates, just seen an article featuring an indepth look at "The Smith".
Art De Roche and James McNicholas
First impressions matter. If they are strong enough to provoke a reaction in the right people, they can lead to endless possibilities.
In the late 2000s, a young midfielder made such an instant impact on the pitch, the opposition felt they had to act. Playing against Junior Elite — one of south London’s most productive football clubs — a boy named Emile starred as the catalyst for Bromley-based Glebe FC. Junior Elite president Rob Mills was one of the spectators and immediately sought out the club’s founder, Colin Omogbehin.
They spoke to Emile’s dad, Les, about switching teams. Father and son were both convinced by the philosophy, values and vision the grassroots club had formed, since their launch in 1998, to help guide young footballers from south London into the professional game with Omogbehin’s experience in professional football, and Emile Smith Rowe’s journey to becoming a professional footballer took a significant step at nine years old.
“His first training session, I’ll never forget it,” Omogbehin tells The Athletic. “We were doing a possession drill, you have end zones and a middle zone. The idea is to get the ball into the middle man (in the middle zone); as he receives, he will be closed down by a defender. Now, Emile’s in the middle and I thought, ‘Let me test this kid’.
“One of the most difficult things in football is to play on the half-turn, but the earlier you teach it, the better they’d be — you’d hope. As the ball comes in, they have to have a little look to see what’s around them. I didn’t stop the practice, I wanted to see this boy play, let him mess up, then go in and coach.
“So, before the ball’s gone into him, he’s moving around in the middle just looking (on) both sides. As the ball comes in, the defender’s coming in, he just pops one around the corner. I’m like, ‘Hold on. Let me see if you can do this again’. He keeps doing it. Next time, the defender isn’t quick enough to get to him, so now he doesn’t need to take one touch, he takes two — takes it, receives it, passes it — so he knows what’s around him.
“He knows when he’s got time and space to take a touch, but he also knows when he’s got to play one-touch when someone closes him down because he always has a scan. If you look at how he plays for Arsenal now, he hardly gives the ball away because he’s always got a picture, he’s always scanning, and that’s something natural he’s had from a young age.”
Making his real breakthrough into the Arsenal first team last season, much of what Smith Rowe did on the pitch appeared natural.
His ability to constantly receive the ball on the half-turn, use as few touches as possible and drive his team upfield, whether it be with a pass or dribble, were aspects of his game both unique to him and crucial to Arsenal turning their season around.
For these intricacies to appear so effortless at the top level of the game, however, there has been over a decade’s worth of preparation and repetition. The son of two teachers, transferring a method most would use in school to his footballing education has paid off for Smith Rowe.
“In games, he always played in that No 10 role,” Omogbehin adds. “When our defenders would get pressed, the idea was: play through the press and Emile is in!”
“Their midfield would go and press our defence, we’d play through a line and, all of a sudden, he’s picking it up on the half-turn and flying. A bit like the positions he takes up now, he’s always on the other side of the (opposition) midfield.”
If these games for Junior Elite were the mock exams for the real thing at Arsenal, the revision came in the days before they took to the pitch at Langley Park Sports Ground, in Beckenham, a tram journey from Smith Rowe’s native Croydon.
These revision sessions were more commonly known as unopposed patterns and would be done every week without fail, imprinting images of what a No 10 should expect when they receive the ball, and the decisions they will have to make.
Like his inclination to “scan”, a young Smith Rowe’s decision-making was another natural ability that just needed nurturing.
“That’s the big thing about Emile, his decision-making is spot on. He gets as much joy out of an assist as he does goals and he’s always had that,” says Omogbehin.
“He used to keep rolling people in at our club and they’ve scored a tap-in. At the same time, he ended up being top goalscorer. If we counted assists then, he definitely would have won that as well.
“So from a young age, we knew that if he was managed right, this boy had all the tools you need to be a top-level footballer. He can run, he’s technically gifted, he has good game understanding, great spatial awareness and he’s a good character. No problems, no sulking, just good as gold. A loveable, likeable team-mate.
“It was just about making sure he was given an opportunity at the right club.”
Arsenal offered Smith Rowe a place at their Hale End academy when he was 10. With the youngster based in the Thornton Heath area of south London at the time, it meant a 90-minute journey to the north east of the city three times a week. To make life easier, his parents decided the family would move to north London.
At 14, Smith Rowe was playing beyond his age group, occasionally turning out for under-16 teams that would go away on tour. Part of the academy set-up at the time, this is when Kwame Ampadu, who Smith Rowe views as one of his most influential coaches to date, first came across him, before he moved up to the under-18s as a 16-year-old in 2016.
On his first day as a scholar, it was Ampadu who oversaw Smith Rowe’s induction.
“Everybody could see Emile was a really talented player,” Ampadu, who is now assistant manager at Major League Soccer club Montreal, tells The Athletic. “He had a fantastic work ethic and attitude. He always trained well and it was just a matter of letting him play.
“It’s not until they step into it, or train with the first team, that they understand how quickly the game moves at that level. It was always our job to try to prepare them for that, but Emile was fine. He was always athletically very good, he could take people on one-v-one but could also see opportunities to run in behind without the ball and he’s a very good finisher.”
As was the case years before in Beckenham, the coaches at Hale End set out to aid Smith Rowe’s development by making him more independent on a football pitch, nurturing his natural qualities further.
“Tests on him figuring out where the space is without having to be told by the coaches (was the focus of his training),” Ampadu remembers. “Figuring out what different defences are giving you and how he could recognise and exploit that quickly.”
Scoring 13 goals and providing three assists across the under-18s, under-21s and under-23s in the two years after signing as a scholar, Smith Rowe stood out.
In October 2017, he was part of Steve Cooper’s World Cup-winning England Under-17s squad and at the end of that club season he was one of the standout players across both legs in Arsenal’s FA Youth Cup final loss to Chelsea.
Despite Ampadu’s side losing that final 7-1 on aggregate (3-1 in the first leg, 4-0 in the second leg), opponent Conor Gallagher highlighted Smith Rowe’s performances as the best he’d faced in an April 2020 Q&A session with loan club Swansea City. “I remember in the FA Youth Cup, Emile Smith Rowe gave me the runaround, so that’s a game that sticks out to me,” he said.
Thinking back to those two matches played at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates Stadium in April 2018, Ampadu agrees.
“First of all, in those games, there was a very high level of player on the pitch. That Chelsea squad has produced a couple of full internationals and players that are playing first-team football at various levels,” he adds — the teams Arsenal faced included Billy Gilmour, Tariq Lamptey, Reece James and Callum Hudson-Odoi, among others.
“Emile, on the two nights, showed he could live in that company no problem at all.”
Within three months, Smith Rowe was on a plane to Singapore with Unai Emery’s first-team squad for their 2018-19 pre-season tour.
Alongside Emery, Ampadu held discussions with staff from the under-18s and under-23s squads, as well as the medical and fitness departments, on Smith Rowe’s involvement. His ability to acclimatise quickly was one of the deciding factors.
Ampadu details how the then-17-year-old stepped up so quickly: “(It was) his ability to go over with the first team and handle the session technically, deal with the pace of it, and then the game understanding. The simplicity and effectiveness of his game.”
On his unofficial club debut, he scored against Atletico Madrid. On his 18th birthday two days later, he started against Paris Saint-Germain, assisting Alexandre Lacazette in a 5-1 win. At the end of that month, he signed a five-year contract.
Having made such a strong statement on that tour, his integration to the first team went up a notch. Emery played Smith Rowe in six first-team games before Christmas, and he scored in half of them. With more consistent game time becoming a necessity, figures not too far from home became influential.
As he was rising through the academy at Arsenal, a teenage Smith Rowe was being monitored by arch-rivals and neighbours Tottenham Hotspur.
“I definitely wanted to bring him to Tottenham because I thought he would have fit in really well,” David Webb, who was chief scout for Sp**s’ youth teams at the time, before becoming head of football at Championship side Huddersfield Town in the summer of 2019, tells The Athletic. “My job was to find elite players from (age) 17 through to first-team to train with the first team. I thought Emile definitely had that potential.
“I first saw him play when I was at Tottenham, back in 2015. He played against Tottenham Under-18s, I believe. He started up in a No 10, then he was operating on both wings. He could get in between lines, get into spaces, very comfortable on the ball, but very good at Arsenal-type play. Very good at speeding up the play in tight situations.
“It wasn’t just one standout thing he did (that impressed), but the combination over the course of the game of those attributes.”
Assisting Webb in monitoring Smith Rowe at the time was Tottenham’s then-head of recruitment and analysis, Paul Mitchell, who later became crucial in taking the teenager to Germany’s RB Leipzig on loan.
Mitchell is now sporting director at Monaco, where last season he helped guide the French club to a first Champions League finish since 2017-18 through his focus on medical, sports science, recruitment, scouting, analysis, data insights, coaching and principles of play. Before this, he began his post-playing career as MK Dons’ head of recruitment in 2010, before joining Southampton — where himself and Les Reed recruited Mauricio Pochettino — and then being hired after the Argentinian by Tottenham. Then came a switch to Leipzig.
So was pursuing Smith Rowe on his mind when he moved to the Bundesliga?
“Very much so, because he really does suit, and fit very well, how I like my teams to play,” Mitchell tells The Athletic.
“The Southampton team under Pochettino, the Tottenham team under Pochettino, we always signed players that can play with an intensity, aggressivity, high press, but also had a capability with the football. (Those are) not easy to find, but that’s what we saw in those early stages at Tottenham with Emile when doing auditing and analysis.
“The recruitment and monitoring phases don’t really change when I move clubs because, like the players, I try and choose the clubs that fit with how I want to work and the philosophy of how I’ve seen the game. So, once again, he came very much in view. We didn’t blink when we had the opportunity to bring him across to Leipzig.”
Arsenal loans manager Ben Knapper, who has since put in place their Dragons’ Den-style process to help decide where players go on loan, was in the infancy of his role at the time.
The level of competition at Leipzig (they would finish third that season) initially seemed like a hurdle, but Mitchell convinced Arsenal it would prove beneficial in the long run — especially if Smith Rowe was going to be fighting for a place in their team at the Emirates every week in the following years.
As the teenager’s first loan spell, and with it being abroad, there was also a focus on how he would integrate. Arsenal accepted Leipzig’s request to talk to Smith Rowe’s parents ahead of the move, which was seen as a component just as key as what would happen on the pitch.
The attention put into this aspect of the deal was something that, from both personal and secondary experiences, Mitchell knew was important to get right with the teenager being taken away from London for the first time.
“I was heavily involved in the Luke Shaw transfer (from Southampton) to Manchester United many years before and a lot of the feedback we got from those early years in Manchester was around struggling to integrate — taking ownership of that integration from a club perspective,” he recalls.
“In those days, the player-care departments probably weren’t as big or focussed as they are now and I think it’s a massive tool. Especially when you move players from different countries. (That) always stuck with me.
“I did the integration part (to life in Germany) myself and even as an adult, learning the different tax systems, learning to pay rent, the nuances of even paying simplistic bills in your apartment is different. It was challenging for me, let alone someone that is coming from living in his mum and dad’s house and had never done that even in England before. So I did want to take a little bit of ownership of Emile’s move and felt that was the right thing to do.”
Extra help came from Tyler Adams, now a fully-fledged US international midfielder, who had been part of the Red Bull system from the age of nine and had joined Leipzig the same month from their sister club in New York. As well as having Mitchell to guide them, and to watch Champions League games and go out to eat with, the two youngsters bonded well during their time together in eastern Germany.
What many remember Smith Rowe’s half-season at RB Leipzig for, however, is injuries.
His debut did not come until the April, after he arrived carrying a groin problem but by then he was impressing so much in training that an approach for a permanent transfer was being considered.
Making his Bundesliga debut with an 89th-minute cameo against Wolfsburg, the 18-year-old made the bench in the next game away to Borussia Monchengladbach and was in line to start at home to Freiburg the following week, but his rhythm was soon disrupted.
“Sometimes in football, through all the planning, processes and resources you put in place, sometimes you also need a bit of luck. Emile actually came to Leipzig with a small injury that needed some rehabilitation to overcome and we knew that, that was fine,” Mitchell remembers.
“We came back from an away trip and he was in really good momentum; made his debut, did well, played another game, came back and he wore someone’s boots, because his pair hadn’t arrived for the training session on the recovery day. He slipped — no fault of anybody’s — and reaggravated the injury.
“This really set him back physically from a playing perspective, and also a little bit mentally because time was passing away, he worked incredibly hard with the rehabilitation team, everything was positive, we were in discussions with the head coach, he was going to start the next game and then something you can’t control happens.”
The injury itself is fairly common among explosive athletes and was related to the growth of the pubic bone near the groin, which is often the last bone to fully mature for a young man. Rather than there being any muscle injuries, the setbacks came from biomechanical restructuring, an issue that is now behind Smith Rowe.
He returned for the final two games of the season, with a late substitute appearance against Bayern Munich when the game was tied 0-0 showing the faith the club had in him. But in total, he played less than half an hour of competitive football for Leipzig.
With so little game time, much of the loan period became focused on other areas of development.
Mitchell himself was a footballer who had experienced injury struggles, having been out for two years after breaking multiple bones in his left leg, and was keen to keep Smith Rowe’s mind active. As well as going undergoing physical rehab, tactical analysis sessions became more frequent.
“We were focussing a lot on transition, playing without the ball, first movement when we lose possession, playing high, playing fast, playing linear,” adds Mitchell.
Considering the importance Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta puts on his attacking midfielders leading the press, this aspect of Smith Rowe’s football education was particularly beneficial.
“That is a big principle for me, thinking forward, looking forward, trying to be a proactive player breaking lines,” Mitchell continues.
“We had a rule at Leipzig at the time: the most crucial part when the opponent gives possession (away) is the first seven seconds. There’s a lot of data around the fact they’re spread, there are more spaces, they’re unbalanced tactically because they’re in offensive mode not defensive mode. So, if you can counter-attack efficiently in those seven seconds — and we did a lot of work with Emile on this — the high percentage comes that you will score a goal, or at least create a big xG.
“It didn’t go as well as we’d have liked on the pitch, but off the pitch we put in place building blocks that I think are benefiting Emile today.”
Returning to London Colney two summers ago, Smith Rowe was stepping into the first-team environment with more familiar faces around him.
Bukayo Saka was continuing to impress Emery, Reiss Nelson was back from his own German Bundesliga loan with Hoffenheim, but importantly, Freddie Ljungberg was promoted to first-team coach after a strong 2018-19 campaign as under-23s manager.
Emery still gave Smith Rowe outings where possible early in the Europa League, but a concussion against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup and the growing pressure on the Spaniard meant fewer opportunities arose in the dying embers of the Emery era.
Ljungberg took interim charge for three pre-Christmas weeks in 2019 and the inclination, alongside Per Mertesacker, who had arrived to assist him from the academy, to give youth a chance was clear instantly. In their only Europa League game in charge, aside from starting Smith Rowe, fellow youngsters Tyreece John-Jules, Robbie Burton, Zech Medley, James Olayinka and Konstantinos Mavropanos all travelled to Standard Liege.
“I was just interim coach but I felt I could (make)… hopefully a difference for these players and give them the chance that people can see how amazing they are, not just what I see,” Ljungberg tells The Athletic.
Having worked at Hale End in 2016-17 as under-15s coach, the Swede was already familiar with Smith Rowe when they later linked up again with the under-23s two seasons later. By the time the pair were together at first-team level late in 2019, that familiarity had built trust.
“I said once after I had Emile in an under-23 game, ‘He is what I like to see from an Arsenal academy player’. He works extremely hard, he does what he is supposed to do on the pitch down to a tee, he really tried to perfect what he does. At the same time, he’s very humble, he makes everyone around him feel comfortable and very happy,” the former Arsenal winger adds.
“He’s a role model — what I like to see from the academy. How your behaviour will be even, when you have great success. He’s been a big talent for most of his life and still having that attitude towards work, I know that’s something I spoke out about when I had him as the under-23s (manager) because I admired that about him and then, obviously, he really stood out on the pitch.”
In that three-week spell in charge, Ljungberg gave Smith Rowe both his Premier League debut, as a substitute against Manchester City, and his first Premier League start away to Everton.
Replacing Mesut Özil against City, the 19-year-old was on for half an hour and impressed despite the game already being lost at 3-0.
He displayed the simplicity and effectiveness that has been evident throughout his career, and was rewarded with a start at Goodison Park which lasted 66 minutes. It was his last Arsenal appearance before he was sent out on loan again, to Championship club Huddersfield.
“Maybe Emile was a little bit surprised (about the move to Huddersfield), but for me, it was not that I had Emile at a younger age, it was that I felt for a long time, he needs to get this dip in, to feel what it’s really like,” adds Ljungberg. “Maybe he’s not going to be man of the match the first couple of games he plays, but he needs to get the experience. Until you get that experience, you can’t take the next step.”
One situation stood out for the Swede, which proved him correct that Smith Rowe needed in-game experience.
“I remember when we played at Everton, there was a pass just outside the box and it was him or Auba (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) going for the ball,” continues Ljungberg. “It was for Emile — he had the better shooting opportunity, but he let it go for Auba (below).”
Without much time, Aubameyang could not get enough power on a shot that was easily saved by Jordan Pickford.
“I said to him, ‘Don’t let that happen again, because that’s yours. I knew you would score’,” Ljungberg recalls. “So those are the things I said to him — ‘Embrace it and show how good you are, take every opportunity’ — and that’s something I feel he’s learnt, to take more responsibility.”
This much was evident in Smith Rowe’s first north London derby this March, when he forced Lacazette to stop in his tracks (below) before rattling the Tottenham crossbar.
“I said to him, ‘Really believe in all the attributes you have’ — because in my opinion, for him to play as a No 10, he has the physicality. Compared to me (as a player), he’s much bigger and more physical, so he can hold off the ball better than I could, for example. He has the speed and acceleration most players don’t have in the middle of the park on a much higher degree, so he can get away from players,” Ljungberg adds.
“That’s where we work on being half-turned; with experience, you feel where a defensive midfielder is — on your left side, on your right side — where do you need to angle the ball so you can actually use your physicality so you don’t get stuck and that touch is extremely important. If it’s too short or it’s underneath you, even if they are slower than you, they might be able to get a toe there and you can’t use what you’re actually good at. Stuff like that we talked a lot about.”
Ljungberg’s development of youngsters even focused on details that would help them relax when finally thrust into the limelight of the global brand of the Premier League.
“When you just start in the Premiership, the anticipation, the emotions, the pressure compared to doing another game if you’re Championship or it’s the under-23s, it’s different — especially if you’re at Arsenal. They’ve been there their whole childhoods. So I tried to help them to find a rhythm of how they treated the day before the game, because if you have your own small ritual, in my opinion, you can feel peace and calmness within what you do,” Ljungberg, who made 241 Premier League appearances with Arsenal and later West Ham United, says.
“Young players need to find their own way they want to prepare. So for me, it was a lot of talking of, ‘Look at other pros, they’ve been doing this for 10, 15 years. Is there anything you want to copy how they prepare? Are they lively? Calm, do they not care? What do they do that you think would be a good preparation for you so, when you play a Champions League final, you have your inner peace and you don’t get nervous’.”
That blend of technical and mental preparation for the relative unknown was important for those making their initial steps into first-team football that year, whether guided by Ljungberg or not.
Joe Willock, for instance, is a very spiritual person and has his own routine that begins with writing out what he wants to achieve in an upcoming game on the day before.
“You need to treat every player as an individual,” says Ljungberg. “We are not all the same. That is in life but sometimes in football, everybody expects everybody to be the same when they should be this or that.
“Sometimes, when you’re a little bit shy, people can misunderstand that. For me, I don’t care, I think he’s a great human being.”
Huddersfield was the crucial next step. Compared to that half-season in Germany, he found the game time in Yorkshire he needed to build consistency in performance and durability.
Once again, it was a familiar face that provided the opportunity as Webb, who had monitored him while at Tottenham, was now Huddersfield’s head of football. Alongside then-manager Danny Cowley, he led a charge to land the 19-year-old on loan.
“With Emile, knowing the player, how he would fit, we found we could offer him guaranteed playing time, an environment that would offer him a different challenge,” Webb remembers.
“Huddersfield at the time weren’t going fantastic in the league so when a player comes from Arsenal, as talented as he is, playing with the players he did on a continual basis — and at Leipzig — he’s only been working with top-class players.
“We knew for him, this would be a test of not ability, but to develop him as a character. Give him that chance to prove to the parent (club) what football can be like at the other end of the scale. He would be able to execute his footballing qualities, but would need certain characteristics, especially in the Championship when you’re in a fight: the work ethic off the ball, the physicality, players kicking you. He handled all that really well, so for him it showed his maturity to choose Huddersfield.”
Playing as the side’s primary No 10, Smith Rowe thrived, both before the pandemic halted the season and after football returned following three months in lockdown. Good games against Fulham and Bristol City helped him stamp authority in the Huddersfield midfield and, in the penultimate game last July, his late winner at home against West Bromwich Albion helped keep Huddersfield safe from relegation.
During that time, he amassed 19 appearances (and a second goal) as Cowley’s patient initial approach to using him paid off.
“We managed him through the first few games,” Cowley, now manager at League One Portsmouth, tells The Athletic. “It’s a pretty robust league, the Championship, the games come thick and fast, and we looked after him in terms of his minutes,”
“We played him Saturday to Saturday, but by the end of the loan period, he was able to cope with the three-game week and perform at his levels in all three games, which is testament to him. The human body’s an unbelievable machine and after a period of time and conditioning, it sucks it up and gets used to it.”
The defensive strategies adopted by many teams across the division also helped him develop his game in possession.
“Playing in that No 10 position, you have a lot of teams in the Championship that adopt man-to-man marking styles,” says Cowley.
“He makes good corner runs in behind full-backs. He’s willing to stretch the pitch and we always encouraged him to do that because if you did that in the early part of the game — five or six runs in the first 20 minutes — then he would get the space to receive the ball between the lines, which is ultimately what he wants to do.”
The successful loan was appreciated not only by Smith Rowe but also his parents, who phoned Cowley to say how much they appreciated his impact on their son’s career.
He was now ready for the Arsenal first team.
For many, it has been a matter of “when” rather than “if” Smith Rowe would break into the Arsenal side permanently.
With the creative crisis during the first half of last season so detrimental, many were left wondering why it took until Boxing Day for him to finally get another chance in the Premier League.
But he ended the 2020-21 campaign having played 33 games in all competitions and stylistically, he provided balance when used both as a No 10 and when drifting in from the left as the link between the midfield and forward line.
He scored four goals, two with each foot, and provided seven assists — the pick of the bunch being his slid ball in to Nicolas Pepe after he pulled off two nutmegs on the edge of a packed Slavia Prague penalty area in the Europa League quarter-finals.
Even with Arsenal’s European hopes on the ropes in the next round, he was a shining light against former boss Emery’s Villarreal, and continued to be as the season dwindled away later in the spring.
In many ways, this is just the beginning; Smith Rowe only turns 21 on July 28.
With a decade or more in the Arsenal first team potentially ahead of him if he continues his current trajectory, those hours of hard work and perseverance with the help of many others from friends, family, coaches and club staff will never be forgotten.
Emile Smith Rowe was made to make it.
First impressions matter. If they are strong enough to provoke a reaction in the right people, they can lead to endless possibilities.
In the late 2000s, a young midfielder made such an instant impact on the pitch, the opposition felt they had to act. Playing against Junior Elite — one of south London’s most productive football clubs — a boy named Emile starred as the catalyst for Bromley-based Glebe FC. Junior Elite president Rob Mills was one of the spectators and immediately sought out the club’s founder, Colin Omogbehin.
They spoke to Emile’s dad, Les, about switching teams. Father and son were both convinced by the philosophy, values and vision the grassroots club had formed, since their launch in 1998, to help guide young footballers from south London into the professional game with Omogbehin’s experience in professional football, and Emile Smith Rowe’s journey to becoming a professional footballer took a significant step at nine years old.
“His first training session, I’ll never forget it,” Omogbehin tells The Athletic. “We were doing a possession drill, you have end zones and a middle zone. The idea is to get the ball into the middle man (in the middle zone); as he receives, he will be closed down by a defender. Now, Emile’s in the middle and I thought, ‘Let me test this kid’.
“One of the most difficult things in football is to play on the half-turn, but the earlier you teach it, the better they’d be — you’d hope. As the ball comes in, they have to have a little look to see what’s around them. I didn’t stop the practice, I wanted to see this boy play, let him mess up, then go in and coach.
“So, before the ball’s gone into him, he’s moving around in the middle just looking (on) both sides. As the ball comes in, the defender’s coming in, he just pops one around the corner. I’m like, ‘Hold on. Let me see if you can do this again’. He keeps doing it. Next time, the defender isn’t quick enough to get to him, so now he doesn’t need to take one touch, he takes two — takes it, receives it, passes it — so he knows what’s around him.
“He knows when he’s got time and space to take a touch, but he also knows when he’s got to play one-touch when someone closes him down because he always has a scan. If you look at how he plays for Arsenal now, he hardly gives the ball away because he’s always got a picture, he’s always scanning, and that’s something natural he’s had from a young age.”
Making his real breakthrough into the Arsenal first team last season, much of what Smith Rowe did on the pitch appeared natural.
His ability to constantly receive the ball on the half-turn, use as few touches as possible and drive his team upfield, whether it be with a pass or dribble, were aspects of his game both unique to him and crucial to Arsenal turning their season around.
For these intricacies to appear so effortless at the top level of the game, however, there has been over a decade’s worth of preparation and repetition. The son of two teachers, transferring a method most would use in school to his footballing education has paid off for Smith Rowe.
“In games, he always played in that No 10 role,” Omogbehin adds. “When our defenders would get pressed, the idea was: play through the press and Emile is in!”
“Their midfield would go and press our defence, we’d play through a line and, all of a sudden, he’s picking it up on the half-turn and flying. A bit like the positions he takes up now, he’s always on the other side of the (opposition) midfield.”
If these games for Junior Elite were the mock exams for the real thing at Arsenal, the revision came in the days before they took to the pitch at Langley Park Sports Ground, in Beckenham, a tram journey from Smith Rowe’s native Croydon.
These revision sessions were more commonly known as unopposed patterns and would be done every week without fail, imprinting images of what a No 10 should expect when they receive the ball, and the decisions they will have to make.
Like his inclination to “scan”, a young Smith Rowe’s decision-making was another natural ability that just needed nurturing.
“That’s the big thing about Emile, his decision-making is spot on. He gets as much joy out of an assist as he does goals and he’s always had that,” says Omogbehin.
“He used to keep rolling people in at our club and they’ve scored a tap-in. At the same time, he ended up being top goalscorer. If we counted assists then, he definitely would have won that as well.
“So from a young age, we knew that if he was managed right, this boy had all the tools you need to be a top-level footballer. He can run, he’s technically gifted, he has good game understanding, great spatial awareness and he’s a good character. No problems, no sulking, just good as gold. A loveable, likeable team-mate.
“It was just about making sure he was given an opportunity at the right club.”
Arsenal offered Smith Rowe a place at their Hale End academy when he was 10. With the youngster based in the Thornton Heath area of south London at the time, it meant a 90-minute journey to the north east of the city three times a week. To make life easier, his parents decided the family would move to north London.
At 14, Smith Rowe was playing beyond his age group, occasionally turning out for under-16 teams that would go away on tour. Part of the academy set-up at the time, this is when Kwame Ampadu, who Smith Rowe views as one of his most influential coaches to date, first came across him, before he moved up to the under-18s as a 16-year-old in 2016.
On his first day as a scholar, it was Ampadu who oversaw Smith Rowe’s induction.
“Everybody could see Emile was a really talented player,” Ampadu, who is now assistant manager at Major League Soccer club Montreal, tells The Athletic. “He had a fantastic work ethic and attitude. He always trained well and it was just a matter of letting him play.
“It’s not until they step into it, or train with the first team, that they understand how quickly the game moves at that level. It was always our job to try to prepare them for that, but Emile was fine. He was always athletically very good, he could take people on one-v-one but could also see opportunities to run in behind without the ball and he’s a very good finisher.”
As was the case years before in Beckenham, the coaches at Hale End set out to aid Smith Rowe’s development by making him more independent on a football pitch, nurturing his natural qualities further.
“Tests on him figuring out where the space is without having to be told by the coaches (was the focus of his training),” Ampadu remembers. “Figuring out what different defences are giving you and how he could recognise and exploit that quickly.”
Scoring 13 goals and providing three assists across the under-18s, under-21s and under-23s in the two years after signing as a scholar, Smith Rowe stood out.
In October 2017, he was part of Steve Cooper’s World Cup-winning England Under-17s squad and at the end of that club season he was one of the standout players across both legs in Arsenal’s FA Youth Cup final loss to Chelsea.
Despite Ampadu’s side losing that final 7-1 on aggregate (3-1 in the first leg, 4-0 in the second leg), opponent Conor Gallagher highlighted Smith Rowe’s performances as the best he’d faced in an April 2020 Q&A session with loan club Swansea City. “I remember in the FA Youth Cup, Emile Smith Rowe gave me the runaround, so that’s a game that sticks out to me,” he said.
Thinking back to those two matches played at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates Stadium in April 2018, Ampadu agrees.
“First of all, in those games, there was a very high level of player on the pitch. That Chelsea squad has produced a couple of full internationals and players that are playing first-team football at various levels,” he adds — the teams Arsenal faced included Billy Gilmour, Tariq Lamptey, Reece James and Callum Hudson-Odoi, among others.
“Emile, on the two nights, showed he could live in that company no problem at all.”
Within three months, Smith Rowe was on a plane to Singapore with Unai Emery’s first-team squad for their 2018-19 pre-season tour.
Alongside Emery, Ampadu held discussions with staff from the under-18s and under-23s squads, as well as the medical and fitness departments, on Smith Rowe’s involvement. His ability to acclimatise quickly was one of the deciding factors.
Ampadu details how the then-17-year-old stepped up so quickly: “(It was) his ability to go over with the first team and handle the session technically, deal with the pace of it, and then the game understanding. The simplicity and effectiveness of his game.”
On his unofficial club debut, he scored against Atletico Madrid. On his 18th birthday two days later, he started against Paris Saint-Germain, assisting Alexandre Lacazette in a 5-1 win. At the end of that month, he signed a five-year contract.
Having made such a strong statement on that tour, his integration to the first team went up a notch. Emery played Smith Rowe in six first-team games before Christmas, and he scored in half of them. With more consistent game time becoming a necessity, figures not too far from home became influential.
As he was rising through the academy at Arsenal, a teenage Smith Rowe was being monitored by arch-rivals and neighbours Tottenham Hotspur.
“I definitely wanted to bring him to Tottenham because I thought he would have fit in really well,” David Webb, who was chief scout for Sp**s’ youth teams at the time, before becoming head of football at Championship side Huddersfield Town in the summer of 2019, tells The Athletic. “My job was to find elite players from (age) 17 through to first-team to train with the first team. I thought Emile definitely had that potential.
“I first saw him play when I was at Tottenham, back in 2015. He played against Tottenham Under-18s, I believe. He started up in a No 10, then he was operating on both wings. He could get in between lines, get into spaces, very comfortable on the ball, but very good at Arsenal-type play. Very good at speeding up the play in tight situations.
“It wasn’t just one standout thing he did (that impressed), but the combination over the course of the game of those attributes.”
Assisting Webb in monitoring Smith Rowe at the time was Tottenham’s then-head of recruitment and analysis, Paul Mitchell, who later became crucial in taking the teenager to Germany’s RB Leipzig on loan.
Mitchell is now sporting director at Monaco, where last season he helped guide the French club to a first Champions League finish since 2017-18 through his focus on medical, sports science, recruitment, scouting, analysis, data insights, coaching and principles of play. Before this, he began his post-playing career as MK Dons’ head of recruitment in 2010, before joining Southampton — where himself and Les Reed recruited Mauricio Pochettino — and then being hired after the Argentinian by Tottenham. Then came a switch to Leipzig.
So was pursuing Smith Rowe on his mind when he moved to the Bundesliga?
“Very much so, because he really does suit, and fit very well, how I like my teams to play,” Mitchell tells The Athletic.
“The Southampton team under Pochettino, the Tottenham team under Pochettino, we always signed players that can play with an intensity, aggressivity, high press, but also had a capability with the football. (Those are) not easy to find, but that’s what we saw in those early stages at Tottenham with Emile when doing auditing and analysis.
“The recruitment and monitoring phases don’t really change when I move clubs because, like the players, I try and choose the clubs that fit with how I want to work and the philosophy of how I’ve seen the game. So, once again, he came very much in view. We didn’t blink when we had the opportunity to bring him across to Leipzig.”
Arsenal loans manager Ben Knapper, who has since put in place their Dragons’ Den-style process to help decide where players go on loan, was in the infancy of his role at the time.
The level of competition at Leipzig (they would finish third that season) initially seemed like a hurdle, but Mitchell convinced Arsenal it would prove beneficial in the long run — especially if Smith Rowe was going to be fighting for a place in their team at the Emirates every week in the following years.
As the teenager’s first loan spell, and with it being abroad, there was also a focus on how he would integrate. Arsenal accepted Leipzig’s request to talk to Smith Rowe’s parents ahead of the move, which was seen as a component just as key as what would happen on the pitch.
The attention put into this aspect of the deal was something that, from both personal and secondary experiences, Mitchell knew was important to get right with the teenager being taken away from London for the first time.
“I was heavily involved in the Luke Shaw transfer (from Southampton) to Manchester United many years before and a lot of the feedback we got from those early years in Manchester was around struggling to integrate — taking ownership of that integration from a club perspective,” he recalls.
“In those days, the player-care departments probably weren’t as big or focussed as they are now and I think it’s a massive tool. Especially when you move players from different countries. (That) always stuck with me.
“I did the integration part (to life in Germany) myself and even as an adult, learning the different tax systems, learning to pay rent, the nuances of even paying simplistic bills in your apartment is different. It was challenging for me, let alone someone that is coming from living in his mum and dad’s house and had never done that even in England before. So I did want to take a little bit of ownership of Emile’s move and felt that was the right thing to do.”
Extra help came from Tyler Adams, now a fully-fledged US international midfielder, who had been part of the Red Bull system from the age of nine and had joined Leipzig the same month from their sister club in New York. As well as having Mitchell to guide them, and to watch Champions League games and go out to eat with, the two youngsters bonded well during their time together in eastern Germany.
What many remember Smith Rowe’s half-season at RB Leipzig for, however, is injuries.
His debut did not come until the April, after he arrived carrying a groin problem but by then he was impressing so much in training that an approach for a permanent transfer was being considered.
Making his Bundesliga debut with an 89th-minute cameo against Wolfsburg, the 18-year-old made the bench in the next game away to Borussia Monchengladbach and was in line to start at home to Freiburg the following week, but his rhythm was soon disrupted.
“Sometimes in football, through all the planning, processes and resources you put in place, sometimes you also need a bit of luck. Emile actually came to Leipzig with a small injury that needed some rehabilitation to overcome and we knew that, that was fine,” Mitchell remembers.
“We came back from an away trip and he was in really good momentum; made his debut, did well, played another game, came back and he wore someone’s boots, because his pair hadn’t arrived for the training session on the recovery day. He slipped — no fault of anybody’s — and reaggravated the injury.
“This really set him back physically from a playing perspective, and also a little bit mentally because time was passing away, he worked incredibly hard with the rehabilitation team, everything was positive, we were in discussions with the head coach, he was going to start the next game and then something you can’t control happens.”
The injury itself is fairly common among explosive athletes and was related to the growth of the pubic bone near the groin, which is often the last bone to fully mature for a young man. Rather than there being any muscle injuries, the setbacks came from biomechanical restructuring, an issue that is now behind Smith Rowe.
He returned for the final two games of the season, with a late substitute appearance against Bayern Munich when the game was tied 0-0 showing the faith the club had in him. But in total, he played less than half an hour of competitive football for Leipzig.
With so little game time, much of the loan period became focused on other areas of development.
Mitchell himself was a footballer who had experienced injury struggles, having been out for two years after breaking multiple bones in his left leg, and was keen to keep Smith Rowe’s mind active. As well as going undergoing physical rehab, tactical analysis sessions became more frequent.
“We were focussing a lot on transition, playing without the ball, first movement when we lose possession, playing high, playing fast, playing linear,” adds Mitchell.
Considering the importance Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta puts on his attacking midfielders leading the press, this aspect of Smith Rowe’s football education was particularly beneficial.
“That is a big principle for me, thinking forward, looking forward, trying to be a proactive player breaking lines,” Mitchell continues.
“We had a rule at Leipzig at the time: the most crucial part when the opponent gives possession (away) is the first seven seconds. There’s a lot of data around the fact they’re spread, there are more spaces, they’re unbalanced tactically because they’re in offensive mode not defensive mode. So, if you can counter-attack efficiently in those seven seconds — and we did a lot of work with Emile on this — the high percentage comes that you will score a goal, or at least create a big xG.
“It didn’t go as well as we’d have liked on the pitch, but off the pitch we put in place building blocks that I think are benefiting Emile today.”
Returning to London Colney two summers ago, Smith Rowe was stepping into the first-team environment with more familiar faces around him.
Bukayo Saka was continuing to impress Emery, Reiss Nelson was back from his own German Bundesliga loan with Hoffenheim, but importantly, Freddie Ljungberg was promoted to first-team coach after a strong 2018-19 campaign as under-23s manager.
Emery still gave Smith Rowe outings where possible early in the Europa League, but a concussion against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup and the growing pressure on the Spaniard meant fewer opportunities arose in the dying embers of the Emery era.
Ljungberg took interim charge for three pre-Christmas weeks in 2019 and the inclination, alongside Per Mertesacker, who had arrived to assist him from the academy, to give youth a chance was clear instantly. In their only Europa League game in charge, aside from starting Smith Rowe, fellow youngsters Tyreece John-Jules, Robbie Burton, Zech Medley, James Olayinka and Konstantinos Mavropanos all travelled to Standard Liege.
“I was just interim coach but I felt I could (make)… hopefully a difference for these players and give them the chance that people can see how amazing they are, not just what I see,” Ljungberg tells The Athletic.
Having worked at Hale End in 2016-17 as under-15s coach, the Swede was already familiar with Smith Rowe when they later linked up again with the under-23s two seasons later. By the time the pair were together at first-team level late in 2019, that familiarity had built trust.
“I said once after I had Emile in an under-23 game, ‘He is what I like to see from an Arsenal academy player’. He works extremely hard, he does what he is supposed to do on the pitch down to a tee, he really tried to perfect what he does. At the same time, he’s very humble, he makes everyone around him feel comfortable and very happy,” the former Arsenal winger adds.
“He’s a role model — what I like to see from the academy. How your behaviour will be even, when you have great success. He’s been a big talent for most of his life and still having that attitude towards work, I know that’s something I spoke out about when I had him as the under-23s (manager) because I admired that about him and then, obviously, he really stood out on the pitch.”
In that three-week spell in charge, Ljungberg gave Smith Rowe both his Premier League debut, as a substitute against Manchester City, and his first Premier League start away to Everton.
Replacing Mesut Özil against City, the 19-year-old was on for half an hour and impressed despite the game already being lost at 3-0.
He displayed the simplicity and effectiveness that has been evident throughout his career, and was rewarded with a start at Goodison Park which lasted 66 minutes. It was his last Arsenal appearance before he was sent out on loan again, to Championship club Huddersfield.
“Maybe Emile was a little bit surprised (about the move to Huddersfield), but for me, it was not that I had Emile at a younger age, it was that I felt for a long time, he needs to get this dip in, to feel what it’s really like,” adds Ljungberg. “Maybe he’s not going to be man of the match the first couple of games he plays, but he needs to get the experience. Until you get that experience, you can’t take the next step.”
One situation stood out for the Swede, which proved him correct that Smith Rowe needed in-game experience.
“I remember when we played at Everton, there was a pass just outside the box and it was him or Auba (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) going for the ball,” continues Ljungberg. “It was for Emile — he had the better shooting opportunity, but he let it go for Auba (below).”
Without much time, Aubameyang could not get enough power on a shot that was easily saved by Jordan Pickford.
“I said to him, ‘Don’t let that happen again, because that’s yours. I knew you would score’,” Ljungberg recalls. “So those are the things I said to him — ‘Embrace it and show how good you are, take every opportunity’ — and that’s something I feel he’s learnt, to take more responsibility.”
This much was evident in Smith Rowe’s first north London derby this March, when he forced Lacazette to stop in his tracks (below) before rattling the Tottenham crossbar.
https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/upl...Emile-Smith-Rowe-shot-vs-Sp**s-5-1024x576.png
“I said to him, ‘Really believe in all the attributes you have’ — because in my opinion, for him to play as a No 10, he has the physicality. Compared to me (as a player), he’s much bigger and more physical, so he can hold off the ball better than I could, for example. He has the speed and acceleration most players don’t have in the middle of the park on a much higher degree, so he can get away from players,” Ljungberg adds.
“That’s where we work on being half-turned; with experience, you feel where a defensive midfielder is — on your left side, on your right side — where do you need to angle the ball so you can actually use your physicality so you don’t get stuck and that touch is extremely important. If it’s too short or it’s underneath you, even if they are slower than you, they might be able to get a toe there and you can’t use what you’re actually good at. Stuff like that we talked a lot about.”
Ljungberg’s development of youngsters even focused on details that would help them relax when finally thrust into the limelight of the global brand of the Premier League.
“When you just start in the Premiership, the anticipation, the emotions, the pressure compared to doing another game if you’re Championship or it’s the under-23s, it’s different — especially if you’re at Arsenal. They’ve been there their whole childhoods. So I tried to help them to find a rhythm of how they treated the day before the game, because if you have your own small ritual, in my opinion, you can feel peace and calmness within what you do,” Ljungberg, who made 241 Premier League appearances with Arsenal and later West Ham United, says.
“Young players need to find their own way they want to prepare. So for me, it was a lot of talking of, ‘Look at other pros, they’ve been doing this for 10, 15 years. Is there anything you want to copy how they prepare? Are they lively? Calm, do they not care? What do they do that you think would be a good preparation for you so, when you play a Champions League final, you have your inner peace and you don’t get nervous’.”
That blend of technical and mental preparation for the relative unknown was important for those making their initial steps into first-team football that year, whether guided by Ljungberg or not.
Joe Willock, for instance, is a very spiritual person and has his own routine that begins with writing out what he wants to achieve in an upcoming game on the day before.
“You need to treat every player as an individual,” says Ljungberg. “We are not all the same. That is in life but sometimes in football, everybody expects everybody to be the same when they should be this or that.
“Sometimes, when you’re a little bit shy, people can misunderstand that. For me, I don’t care, I think he’s a great human being.”
Huddersfield was the crucial next step. Compared to that half-season in Germany, he found the game time in Yorkshire he needed to build consistency in performance and durability.
Once again, it was a familiar face that provided the opportunity as Webb, who had monitored him while at Tottenham, was now Huddersfield’s head of football. Alongside then-manager Danny Cowley, he led a charge to land the 19-year-old on loan.
“With Emile, knowing the player, how he would fit, we found we could offer him guaranteed playing time, an environment that would offer him a different challenge,” Webb remembers.
“Huddersfield at the time weren’t going fantastic in the league so when a player comes from Arsenal, as talented as he is, playing with the players he did on a continual basis — and at Leipzig — he’s only been working with top-class players.
“We knew for him, this would be a test of not ability, but to develop him as a character. Give him that chance to prove to the parent (club) what football can be like at the other end of the scale. He would be able to execute his footballing qualities, but would need certain characteristics, especially in the Championship when you’re in a fight: the work ethic off the ball, the physicality, players kicking you. He handled all that really well, so for him it showed his maturity to choose Huddersfield.”
Playing as the side’s primary No 10, Smith Rowe thrived, both before the pandemic halted the season and after football returned following three months in lockdown. Good games against Fulham and Bristol City helped him stamp authority in the Huddersfield midfield and, in the penultimate game last July, his late winner at home against West Bromwich Albion helped keep Huddersfield safe from relegation.
During that time, he amassed 19 appearances (and a second goal) as Cowley’s patient initial approach to using him paid off.
“We managed him through the first few games,” Cowley, now manager at League One Portsmouth, tells The Athletic. “It’s a pretty robust league, the Championship, the games come thick and fast, and we looked after him in terms of his minutes,”
“We played him Saturday to Saturday, but by the end of the loan period, he was able to cope with the three-game week and perform at his levels in all three games, which is testament to him. The human body’s an unbelievable machine and after a period of time and conditioning, it sucks it up and gets used to it.”
The defensive strategies adopted by many teams across the division also helped him develop his game in possession.
“Playing in that No 10 position, you have a lot of teams in the Championship that adopt man-to-man marking styles,” says Cowley.
“He makes good corner runs in behind full-backs. He’s willing to stretch the pitch and we always encouraged him to do that because if you did that in the early part of the game — five or six runs in the first 20 minutes — then he would get the space to receive the ball between the lines, which is ultimately what he wants to do.”
The successful loan was appreciated not only by Smith Rowe but also his parents, who phoned Cowley to say how much they appreciated his impact on their son’s career.
He was now ready for the Arsenal first team.
For many, it has been a matter of “when” rather than “if” Smith Rowe would break into the Arsenal side permanently.
With the creative crisis during the first half of last season so detrimental, many were left wondering why it took until Boxing Day for him to finally get another chance in the Premier League.
But he ended the 2020-21 campaign having played 33 games in all competitions and stylistically, he provided balance when used both as a No 10 and when drifting in from the left as the link between the midfield and forward line.
He scored four goals, two with each foot, and provided seven assists — the pick of the bunch being his slid ball in to Nicolas Pepe after he pulled off two nutmegs on the edge of a packed Slavia Prague penalty area in the Europa League quarter-finals.
Even with Arsenal’s European hopes on the ropes in the next round, he was a shining light against former boss Emery’s Villarreal, and continued to be as the season dwindled away later in the spring.
In many ways, this is just the beginning; Smith Rowe only turns 21 on July 28.
With a decade or more in the Arsenal first team potentially ahead of him if he continues his current trajectory, those hours of hard work and perseverance with the help of many others from friends, family, coaches and club staff will never be forgotten.
Emile Smith Rowe was made to make it.
boonthegoon
Arteta In by November
Country: USA
Player:Ødegaard
Expecting new contract announcement with #8
MartiSaka
Join my "Occupy A-M" movement here 🗳
The smith is signing a new contract; all hail the smith. He is probably the best footballing smith on the planet currently (have a way to go to match that other arsenal smith from the 80s)
Country: Nigeria
Player:Saliba
Apologies for those waiting on contract talks updates, just seen an article featuring an indepth look at "The Smith".
Art De Roche and James McNicholas
First impressions matter. If they are strong enough to provoke a reaction in the right people, they can lead to endless possibilities.
In the late 2000s, a young midfielder made such an instant impact on the pitch, the opposition felt they had to act. Playing against Junior Elite — one of south London’s most productive football clubs — a boy named Emile starred as the catalyst for Bromley-based Glebe FC. Junior Elite president Rob Mills was one of the spectators and immediately sought out the club’s founder, Colin Omogbehin.
They spoke to Emile’s dad, Les, about switching teams. Father and son were both convinced by the philosophy, values and vision the grassroots club had formed, since their launch in 1998, to help guide young footballers from south London into the professional game with Omogbehin’s experience in professional football, and Emile Smith Rowe’s journey to becoming a professional footballer took a significant step at nine years old.
“His first training session, I’ll never forget it,” Omogbehin tells The Athletic. “We were doing a possession drill, you have end zones and a middle zone. The idea is to get the ball into the middle man (in the middle zone); as he receives, he will be closed down by a defender. Now, Emile’s in the middle and I thought, ‘Let me test this kid’.
“One of the most difficult things in football is to play on the half-turn, but the earlier you teach it, the better they’d be — you’d hope. As the ball comes in, they have to have a little look to see what’s around them. I didn’t stop the practice, I wanted to see this boy play, let him mess up, then go in and coach.
“So, before the ball’s gone into him, he’s moving around in the middle just looking (on) both sides. As the ball comes in, the defender’s coming in, he just pops one around the corner. I’m like, ‘Hold on. Let me see if you can do this again’. He keeps doing it. Next time, the defender isn’t quick enough to get to him, so now he doesn’t need to take one touch, he takes two — takes it, receives it, passes it — so he knows what’s around him.
“He knows when he’s got time and space to take a touch, but he also knows when he’s got to play one-touch when someone closes him down because he always has a scan. If you look at how he plays for Arsenal now, he hardly gives the ball away because he’s always got a picture, he’s always scanning, and that’s something natural he’s had from a young age.”
Making his real breakthrough into the Arsenal first team last season, much of what Smith Rowe did on the pitch appeared natural.
His ability to constantly receive the ball on the half-turn, use as few touches as possible and drive his team upfield, whether it be with a pass or dribble, were aspects of his game both unique to him and crucial to Arsenal turning their season around.
For these intricacies to appear so effortless at the top level of the game, however, there has been over a decade’s worth of preparation and repetition. The son of two teachers, transferring a method most would use in school to his footballing education has paid off for Smith Rowe.
“In games, he always played in that No 10 role,” Omogbehin adds. “When our defenders would get pressed, the idea was: play through the press and Emile is in!”
“Their midfield would go and press our defence, we’d play through a line and, all of a sudden, he’s picking it up on the half-turn and flying. A bit like the positions he takes up now, he’s always on the other side of the (opposition) midfield.”
If these games for Junior Elite were the mock exams for the real thing at Arsenal, the revision came in the days before they took to the pitch at Langley Park Sports Ground, in Beckenham, a tram journey from Smith Rowe’s native Croydon.
These revision sessions were more commonly known as unopposed patterns and would be done every week without fail, imprinting images of what a No 10 should expect when they receive the ball, and the decisions they will have to make.
Like his inclination to “scan”, a young Smith Rowe’s decision-making was another natural ability that just needed nurturing.
“That’s the big thing about Emile, his decision-making is spot on. He gets as much joy out of an assist as he does goals and he’s always had that,” says Omogbehin.
“He used to keep rolling people in at our club and they’ve scored a tap-in. At the same time, he ended up being top goalscorer. If we counted assists then, he definitely would have won that as well.
“So from a young age, we knew that if he was managed right, this boy had all the tools you need to be a top-level footballer. He can run, he’s technically gifted, he has good game understanding, great spatial awareness and he’s a good character. No problems, no sulking, just good as gold. A loveable, likeable team-mate.
“It was just about making sure he was given an opportunity at the right club.”
Arsenal offered Smith Rowe a place at their Hale End academy when he was 10. With the youngster based in the Thornton Heath area of south London at the time, it meant a 90-minute journey to the north east of the city three times a week. To make life easier, his parents decided the family would move to north London.
At 14, Smith Rowe was playing beyond his age group, occasionally turning out for under-16 teams that would go away on tour. Part of the academy set-up at the time, this is when Kwame Ampadu, who Smith Rowe views as one of his most influential coaches to date, first came across him, before he moved up to the under-18s as a 16-year-old in 2016.
On his first day as a scholar, it was Ampadu who oversaw Smith Rowe’s induction.
“Everybody could see Emile was a really talented player,” Ampadu, who is now assistant manager at Major League Soccer club Montreal, tells The Athletic. “He had a fantastic work ethic and attitude. He always trained well and it was just a matter of letting him play.
“It’s not until they step into it, or train with the first team, that they understand how quickly the game moves at that level. It was always our job to try to prepare them for that, but Emile was fine. He was always athletically very good, he could take people on one-v-one but could also see opportunities to run in behind without the ball and he’s a very good finisher.”
As was the case years before in Beckenham, the coaches at Hale End set out to aid Smith Rowe’s development by making him more independent on a football pitch, nurturing his natural qualities further.
“Tests on him figuring out where the space is without having to be told by the coaches (was the focus of his training),” Ampadu remembers. “Figuring out what different defences are giving you and how he could recognise and exploit that quickly.”
Scoring 13 goals and providing three assists across the under-18s, under-21s and under-23s in the two years after signing as a scholar, Smith Rowe stood out.
In October 2017, he was part of Steve Cooper’s World Cup-winning England Under-17s squad and at the end of that club season he was one of the standout players across both legs in Arsenal’s FA Youth Cup final loss to Chelsea.
Despite Ampadu’s side losing that final 7-1 on aggregate (3-1 in the first leg, 4-0 in the second leg), opponent Conor Gallagher highlighted Smith Rowe’s performances as the best he’d faced in an April 2020 Q&A session with loan club Swansea City. “I remember in the FA Youth Cup, Emile Smith Rowe gave me the runaround, so that’s a game that sticks out to me,” he said.
Thinking back to those two matches played at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates Stadium in April 2018, Ampadu agrees.
“First of all, in those games, there was a very high level of player on the pitch. That Chelsea squad has produced a couple of full internationals and players that are playing first-team football at various levels,” he adds — the teams Arsenal faced included Billy Gilmour, Tariq Lamptey, Reece James and Callum Hudson-Odoi, among others.
“Emile, on the two nights, showed he could live in that company no problem at all.”
Within three months, Smith Rowe was on a plane to Singapore with Unai Emery’s first-team squad for their 2018-19 pre-season tour.
Alongside Emery, Ampadu held discussions with staff from the under-18s and under-23s squads, as well as the medical and fitness departments, on Smith Rowe’s involvement. His ability to acclimatise quickly was one of the deciding factors.
Ampadu details how the then-17-year-old stepped up so quickly: “(It was) his ability to go over with the first team and handle the session technically, deal with the pace of it, and then the game understanding. The simplicity and effectiveness of his game.”
On his unofficial club debut, he scored against Atletico Madrid. On his 18th birthday two days later, he started against Paris Saint-Germain, assisting Alexandre Lacazette in a 5-1 win. At the end of that month, he signed a five-year contract.
Having made such a strong statement on that tour, his integration to the first team went up a notch. Emery played Smith Rowe in six first-team games before Christmas, and he scored in half of them. With more consistent game time becoming a necessity, figures not too far from home became influential.
As he was rising through the academy at Arsenal, a teenage Smith Rowe was being monitored by arch-rivals and neighbours Tottenham Hotspur.
“I definitely wanted to bring him to Tottenham because I thought he would have fit in really well,” David Webb, who was chief scout for Sp**s’ youth teams at the time, before becoming head of football at Championship side Huddersfield Town in the summer of 2019, tells The Athletic. “My job was to find elite players from (age) 17 through to first-team to train with the first team. I thought Emile definitely had that potential.
“I first saw him play when I was at Tottenham, back in 2015. He played against Tottenham Under-18s, I believe. He started up in a No 10, then he was operating on both wings. He could get in between lines, get into spaces, very comfortable on the ball, but very good at Arsenal-type play. Very good at speeding up the play in tight situations.
“It wasn’t just one standout thing he did (that impressed), but the combination over the course of the game of those attributes.”
Assisting Webb in monitoring Smith Rowe at the time was Tottenham’s then-head of recruitment and analysis, Paul Mitchell, who later became crucial in taking the teenager to Germany’s RB Leipzig on loan.
Mitchell is now sporting director at Monaco, where last season he helped guide the French club to a first Champions League finish since 2017-18 through his focus on medical, sports science, recruitment, scouting, analysis, data insights, coaching and principles of play. Before this, he began his post-playing career as MK Dons’ head of recruitment in 2010, before joining Southampton — where himself and Les Reed recruited Mauricio Pochettino — and then being hired after the Argentinian by Tottenham. Then came a switch to Leipzig.
So was pursuing Smith Rowe on his mind when he moved to the Bundesliga?
“Very much so, because he really does suit, and fit very well, how I like my teams to play,” Mitchell tells The Athletic.
“The Southampton team under Pochettino, the Tottenham team under Pochettino, we always signed players that can play with an intensity, aggressivity, high press, but also had a capability with the football. (Those are) not easy to find, but that’s what we saw in those early stages at Tottenham with Emile when doing auditing and analysis.
“The recruitment and monitoring phases don’t really change when I move clubs because, like the players, I try and choose the clubs that fit with how I want to work and the philosophy of how I’ve seen the game. So, once again, he came very much in view. We didn’t blink when we had the opportunity to bring him across to Leipzig.”
Arsenal loans manager Ben Knapper, who has since put in place their Dragons’ Den-style process to help decide where players go on loan, was in the infancy of his role at the time.
The level of competition at Leipzig (they would finish third that season) initially seemed like a hurdle, but Mitchell convinced Arsenal it would prove beneficial in the long run — especially if Smith Rowe was going to be fighting for a place in their team at the Emirates every week in the following years.
As the teenager’s first loan spell, and with it being abroad, there was also a focus on how he would integrate. Arsenal accepted Leipzig’s request to talk to Smith Rowe’s parents ahead of the move, which was seen as a component just as key as what would happen on the pitch.
The attention put into this aspect of the deal was something that, from both personal and secondary experiences, Mitchell knew was important to get right with the teenager being taken away from London for the first time.
“I was heavily involved in the Luke Shaw transfer (from Southampton) to Manchester United many years before and a lot of the feedback we got from those early years in Manchester was around struggling to integrate — taking ownership of that integration from a club perspective,” he recalls.
“In those days, the player-care departments probably weren’t as big or focussed as they are now and I think it’s a massive tool. Especially when you move players from different countries. (That) always stuck with me.
“I did the integration part (to life in Germany) myself and even as an adult, learning the different tax systems, learning to pay rent, the nuances of even paying simplistic bills in your apartment is different. It was challenging for me, let alone someone that is coming from living in his mum and dad’s house and had never done that even in England before. So I did want to take a little bit of ownership of Emile’s move and felt that was the right thing to do.”
Extra help came from Tyler Adams, now a fully-fledged US international midfielder, who had been part of the Red Bull system from the age of nine and had joined Leipzig the same month from their sister club in New York. As well as having Mitchell to guide them, and to watch Champions League games and go out to eat with, the two youngsters bonded well during their time together in eastern Germany.
What many remember Smith Rowe’s half-season at RB Leipzig for, however, is injuries.
His debut did not come until the April, after he arrived carrying a groin problem but by then he was impressing so much in training that an approach for a permanent transfer was being considered.
Making his Bundesliga debut with an 89th-minute cameo against Wolfsburg, the 18-year-old made the bench in the next game away to Borussia Monchengladbach and was in line to start at home to Freiburg the following week, but his rhythm was soon disrupted.
“Sometimes in football, through all the planning, processes and resources you put in place, sometimes you also need a bit of luck. Emile actually came to Leipzig with a small injury that needed some rehabilitation to overcome and we knew that, that was fine,” Mitchell remembers.
“We came back from an away trip and he was in really good momentum; made his debut, did well, played another game, came back and he wore someone’s boots, because his pair hadn’t arrived for the training session on the recovery day. He slipped — no fault of anybody’s — and reaggravated the injury.
“This really set him back physically from a playing perspective, and also a little bit mentally because time was passing away, he worked incredibly hard with the rehabilitation team, everything was positive, we were in discussions with the head coach, he was going to start the next game and then something you can’t control happens.”
The injury itself is fairly common among explosive athletes and was related to the growth of the pubic bone near the groin, which is often the last bone to fully mature for a young man. Rather than there being any muscle injuries, the setbacks came from biomechanical restructuring, an issue that is now behind Smith Rowe.
He returned for the final two games of the season, with a late substitute appearance against Bayern Munich when the game was tied 0-0 showing the faith the club had in him. But in total, he played less than half an hour of competitive football for Leipzig.
With so little game time, much of the loan period became focused on other areas of development.
Mitchell himself was a footballer who had experienced injury struggles, having been out for two years after breaking multiple bones in his left leg, and was keen to keep Smith Rowe’s mind active. As well as going undergoing physical rehab, tactical analysis sessions became more frequent.
“We were focussing a lot on transition, playing without the ball, first movement when we lose possession, playing high, playing fast, playing linear,” adds Mitchell.
Considering the importance Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta puts on his attacking midfielders leading the press, this aspect of Smith Rowe’s football education was particularly beneficial.
“That is a big principle for me, thinking forward, looking forward, trying to be a proactive player breaking lines,” Mitchell continues.
“We had a rule at Leipzig at the time: the most crucial part when the opponent gives possession (away) is the first seven seconds. There’s a lot of data around the fact they’re spread, there are more spaces, they’re unbalanced tactically because they’re in offensive mode not defensive mode. So, if you can counter-attack efficiently in those seven seconds — and we did a lot of work with Emile on this — the high percentage comes that you will score a goal, or at least create a big xG.
“It didn’t go as well as we’d have liked on the pitch, but off the pitch we put in place building blocks that I think are benefiting Emile today.”
Returning to London Colney two summers ago, Smith Rowe was stepping into the first-team environment with more familiar faces around him.
Bukayo Saka was continuing to impress Emery, Reiss Nelson was back from his own German Bundesliga loan with Hoffenheim, but importantly, Freddie Ljungberg was promoted to first-team coach after a strong 2018-19 campaign as under-23s manager.
Emery still gave Smith Rowe outings where possible early in the Europa League, but a concussion against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup and the growing pressure on the Spaniard meant fewer opportunities arose in the dying embers of the Emery era.
Ljungberg took interim charge for three pre-Christmas weeks in 2019 and the inclination, alongside Per Mertesacker, who had arrived to assist him from the academy, to give youth a chance was clear instantly. In their only Europa League game in charge, aside from starting Smith Rowe, fellow youngsters Tyreece John-Jules, Robbie Burton, Zech Medley, James Olayinka and Konstantinos Mavropanos all travelled to Standard Liege.
“I was just interim coach but I felt I could (make)… hopefully a difference for these players and give them the chance that people can see how amazing they are, not just what I see,” Ljungberg tells The Athletic.
Having worked at Hale End in 2016-17 as under-15s coach, the Swede was already familiar with Smith Rowe when they later linked up again with the under-23s two seasons later. By the time the pair were together at first-team level late in 2019, that familiarity had built trust.
“I said once after I had Emile in an under-23 game, ‘He is what I like to see from an Arsenal academy player’. He works extremely hard, he does what he is supposed to do on the pitch down to a tee, he really tried to perfect what he does. At the same time, he’s very humble, he makes everyone around him feel comfortable and very happy,” the former Arsenal winger adds.
“He’s a role model — what I like to see from the academy. How your behaviour will be even, when you have great success. He’s been a big talent for most of his life and still having that attitude towards work, I know that’s something I spoke out about when I had him as the under-23s (manager) because I admired that about him and then, obviously, he really stood out on the pitch.”
In that three-week spell in charge, Ljungberg gave Smith Rowe both his Premier League debut, as a substitute against Manchester City, and his first Premier League start away to Everton.
Replacing Mesut Özil against City, the 19-year-old was on for half an hour and impressed despite the game already being lost at 3-0.
He displayed the simplicity and effectiveness that has been evident throughout his career, and was rewarded with a start at Goodison Park which lasted 66 minutes. It was his last Arsenal appearance before he was sent out on loan again, to Championship club Huddersfield.
“Maybe Emile was a little bit surprised (about the move to Huddersfield), but for me, it was not that I had Emile at a younger age, it was that I felt for a long time, he needs to get this dip in, to feel what it’s really like,” adds Ljungberg. “Maybe he’s not going to be man of the match the first couple of games he plays, but he needs to get the experience. Until you get that experience, you can’t take the next step.”
One situation stood out for the Swede, which proved him correct that Smith Rowe needed in-game experience.
“I remember when we played at Everton, there was a pass just outside the box and it was him or Auba (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) going for the ball,” continues Ljungberg. “It was for Emile — he had the better shooting opportunity, but he let it go for Auba (below).”
Without much time, Aubameyang could not get enough power on a shot that was easily saved by Jordan Pickford.
“I said to him, ‘Don’t let that happen again, because that’s yours. I knew you would score’,” Ljungberg recalls. “So those are the things I said to him — ‘Embrace it and show how good you are, take every opportunity’ — and that’s something I feel he’s learnt, to take more responsibility.”
This much was evident in Smith Rowe’s first north London derby this March, when he forced Lacazette to stop in his tracks (below) before rattling the Tottenham crossbar.
“I said to him, ‘Really believe in all the attributes you have’ — because in my opinion, for him to play as a No 10, he has the physicality. Compared to me (as a player), he’s much bigger and more physical, so he can hold off the ball better than I could, for example. He has the speed and acceleration most players don’t have in the middle of the park on a much higher degree, so he can get away from players,” Ljungberg adds.
“That’s where we work on being half-turned; with experience, you feel where a defensive midfielder is — on your left side, on your right side — where do you need to angle the ball so you can actually use your physicality so you don’t get stuck and that touch is extremely important. If it’s too short or it’s underneath you, even if they are slower than you, they might be able to get a toe there and you can’t use what you’re actually good at. Stuff like that we talked a lot about.”
Ljungberg’s development of youngsters even focused on details that would help them relax when finally thrust into the limelight of the global brand of the Premier League.
“When you just start in the Premiership, the anticipation, the emotions, the pressure compared to doing another game if you’re Championship or it’s the under-23s, it’s different — especially if you’re at Arsenal. They’ve been there their whole childhoods. So I tried to help them to find a rhythm of how they treated the day before the game, because if you have your own small ritual, in my opinion, you can feel peace and calmness within what you do,” Ljungberg, who made 241 Premier League appearances with Arsenal and later West Ham United, says.
“Young players need to find their own way they want to prepare. So for me, it was a lot of talking of, ‘Look at other pros, they’ve been doing this for 10, 15 years. Is there anything you want to copy how they prepare? Are they lively? Calm, do they not care? What do they do that you think would be a good preparation for you so, when you play a Champions League final, you have your inner peace and you don’t get nervous’.”
That blend of technical and mental preparation for the relative unknown was important for those making their initial steps into first-team football that year, whether guided by Ljungberg or not.
Joe Willock, for instance, is a very spiritual person and has his own routine that begins with writing out what he wants to achieve in an upcoming game on the day before.
“You need to treat every player as an individual,” says Ljungberg. “We are not all the same. That is in life but sometimes in football, everybody expects everybody to be the same when they should be this or that.
“Sometimes, when you’re a little bit shy, people can misunderstand that. For me, I don’t care, I think he’s a great human being.”
Huddersfield was the crucial next step. Compared to that half-season in Germany, he found the game time in Yorkshire he needed to build consistency in performance and durability.
Once again, it was a familiar face that provided the opportunity as Webb, who had monitored him while at Tottenham, was now Huddersfield’s head of football. Alongside then-manager Danny Cowley, he led a charge to land the 19-year-old on loan.
“With Emile, knowing the player, how he would fit, we found we could offer him guaranteed playing time, an environment that would offer him a different challenge,” Webb remembers.
“Huddersfield at the time weren’t going fantastic in the league so when a player comes from Arsenal, as talented as he is, playing with the players he did on a continual basis — and at Leipzig — he’s only been working with top-class players.
“We knew for him, this would be a test of not ability, but to develop him as a character. Give him that chance to prove to the parent (club) what football can be like at the other end of the scale. He would be able to execute his footballing qualities, but would need certain characteristics, especially in the Championship when you’re in a fight: the work ethic off the ball, the physicality, players kicking you. He handled all that really well, so for him it showed his maturity to choose Huddersfield.”
Playing as the side’s primary No 10, Smith Rowe thrived, both before the pandemic halted the season and after football returned following three months in lockdown. Good games against Fulham and Bristol City helped him stamp authority in the Huddersfield midfield and, in the penultimate game last July, his late winner at home against West Bromwich Albion helped keep Huddersfield safe from relegation.
During that time, he amassed 19 appearances (and a second goal) as Cowley’s patient initial approach to using him paid off.
“We managed him through the first few games,” Cowley, now manager at League One Portsmouth, tells The Athletic. “It’s a pretty robust league, the Championship, the games come thick and fast, and we looked after him in terms of his minutes,”
“We played him Saturday to Saturday, but by the end of the loan period, he was able to cope with the three-game week and perform at his levels in all three games, which is testament to him. The human body’s an unbelievable machine and after a period of time and conditioning, it sucks it up and gets used to it.”
The defensive strategies adopted by many teams across the division also helped him develop his game in possession.
“Playing in that No 10 position, you have a lot of teams in the Championship that adopt man-to-man marking styles,” says Cowley.
“He makes good corner runs in behind full-backs. He’s willing to stretch the pitch and we always encouraged him to do that because if you did that in the early part of the game — five or six runs in the first 20 minutes — then he would get the space to receive the ball between the lines, which is ultimately what he wants to do.”
The successful loan was appreciated not only by Smith Rowe but also his parents, who phoned Cowley to say how much they appreciated his impact on their son’s career.
He was now ready for the Arsenal first team.
For many, it has been a matter of “when” rather than “if” Smith Rowe would break into the Arsenal side permanently.
With the creative crisis during the first half of last season so detrimental, many were left wondering why it took until Boxing Day for him to finally get another chance in the Premier League.
But he ended the 2020-21 campaign having played 33 games in all competitions and stylistically, he provided balance when used both as a No 10 and when drifting in from the left as the link between the midfield and forward line.
He scored four goals, two with each foot, and provided seven assists — the pick of the bunch being his slid ball in to Nicolas Pepe after he pulled off two nutmegs on the edge of a packed Slavia Prague penalty area in the Europa League quarter-finals.
Even with Arsenal’s European hopes on the ropes in the next round, he was a shining light against former boss Emery’s Villarreal, and continued to be as the season dwindled away later in the spring.
In many ways, this is just the beginning; Smith Rowe only turns 21 on July 28.
With a decade or more in the Arsenal first team potentially ahead of him if he continues his current trajectory, those hours of hard work and perseverance with the help of many others from friends, family, coaches and club staff will never be forgotten.
Emile Smith Rowe was made to make it.
Barry
Definitely Not An Old Poster
One of the things that excites me about ESR as he develops is his physique. He has a 6ft frame, surprising pace and strength on the ball and obviously very good technique as well. As long as he can up his end product a bit and avoid injury he is going to be quite some player in a couple of years time when he has properly filled out.
Aussie_gunner123
Established Member
Country: Australia
Any major updates on ESR's new contract?
Nope.
Aussie_gunner123
Established Member
Country: Australia
Thanks
Riou
In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over
Country: Northern Ireland
Player:Gabriel
Seeing some rumours that ESR is taking the number 8 shirt, because Mikel Arteta was his fav ever Arsenal player...great news!
DasBootist
Well-Known Member
Wright > Arteta
Country: Norway
Good to see him showing some respect to Don Mik, or he'll be ****ed off to the herring fisheries by Rockall.
tap-in
Nothing Wrong With Me
I agree, he doesnt look 6ft because he is quite stocky already. As long as he doesnt over muscle like Jack did with his sack of spuds legs.
Riou
In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over
Country: Northern Ireland
Player:Gabriel
DasBootist
Well-Known Member
I assumed Smith Rowe would be anti-BrexitWould be funny if Emile is just a big fan of Dani Ceballos
Could be 10. Some crazy fan blew up the picture of him wearing the sliders and holding the shirt. Looked like 10 or 18 on his sliders. Two digits.Then there is the picture or him holding his hands across the badge with his thumbs on top of each other. Hope it's 10 to be honest.
Let's play Aubamawang
Well-Known Member
I was hoping that when ESR scored he would rip his old shirt off, Hulk-style, and reveal another shirt underneath with his new number. I guess he would have been a bit warm though tbf.
Riou
In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over
Country: Northern Ireland
Player:Gabriel
Would be hilarious if ESR announced himself as our new number 10, with this exact celebration...after a consolation goal, in a defeat to Hibs
Would make for great material in our first Amazon Prime episode, I guess!
- Status
