Ever since Arsenal devised the plan to move into the Emirates stadium, Arsene Wenger has adopted a prudent and frugal approach in the transfer market, choosing to groom young talent and sign unknown players instead of following the trend and buying players in order to achieve success.
This has seen a host of talented youngsters ply their trade with the Gunners and develop under the tutelage of Arsene Wenger.
We Arsenal fans talk of Arsene Wenger relying on players from Arsenal’s academy and we often praise our academy for producing top quality players. But I wonder—is it merely a myth? Do the Gunners really have a good academy as we often make it out to be? When you talk about great academies in the world, La Masia and the famed Ajax academy are some great examples. Is Arsenal’s academy on that level or is it a grand illusion that we fans have tricked ourselves into believing?
A mere glance onto the current Arsenal team and a look at some Arsenal legends of the past 15 years will indicate that it might very well be the latter.
In the current Arsenal team, only Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs are academy graduates, with the latter having joined the Gunners at the age of 15 from Wimbledon. Henri Lansbury, another promising Gunner is another academy graduate and including Emmanuel Frimpong, Arsenal currently have four members of their academy in their squad.
Prior to them, the most notable player from the Arsenal academy during the Wenger era has to be, undoubtedly, Ashley Cole, who has arguably been the best left back in world football over the past decade.
The four players currently in the Arsenal team definitely have the potential to be stars for the Emirates club, but right now, it is only Jack Wilshere who has shown the class and potential to be a world class player in the future.
This number is a dismal reading for a club that boasts of having a great youth academy. In the current Arsenal squad, most of the players are bought and signed from other clubs. By this, I do not mean that Arsenal have a squad similar to Manchester City, which has been virtually assembled by signing players from around the globe.
Most of Arsenal’s first team players joined the club at a very young age, in the age bracket of 16 to 20. Players like Theo Walcott, Cesc Fabregas, Johan Djourou, Aaron Ramsey, Gael Clichy, Alex Song and Nicklas Bendtner are examples of this.
But these players were products of other academies from around the world, who were enticed by the regular playing time that the Gunners offered, hence moved to Arsenal. These players were neither expensive nor were they experienced or established when bought by the Gunners.
But while they are definitely not products of Arsenal’s academy, we have to credit the Gunners for grooming these players into the top quality players they are now, with players like Ramsey, Song and Walcott, some of the hottest young talent in the league right now. Arsenal have given these youngsters a chance to shine in the big stage and deserve credit for nurturing these young talents into players with high caliber.
But even a cursory glance into Arsene Wenger’s greatest side, the Invincibles show that the squad comprised of players who were signed by the club, rather than those who rose through the ranks at Arsenal’s academy.
Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Patrick Vieira, Freddy Ljungberg, Kolo Toure, Lauren, all mainstays in the Arsenal team were bought by the club. This doesn’t mean that the Gunners paid over the odds for them, but instead, signed them for an extremely modest fee. Arsenal once again show their ability to scout great talents, but it cannot hide the fact that some of Arsenal’s greatest players are all products of other academies.
All this goes onto show that it is not a great youth academy that the Gunners have but instead, what they have is a fantastic scouting network that has let them pick up some gems from around Europe and some real talent from Africa.
I believe that Arsenal’s scouting network is second to only maybe Manchester United, but even that can be debatable. In Arsenal’s first choice starting lineup that Wenger preferred to use, it was only Jack Wilshere who rose through the ranks in the academy.
While players like Wojciech Szczesny, Fabregas, van Persie, Koscielny, Djourou, Clichy, all are testimony to the success of Arsenal’s scouting network, the fact is that only one player from the academy was actually good enough to play for the club. This makes from grim reading when you compare this to say Barcelona, whose team is dominated by members of La Masia. While it is near impossible to match the exploits of Barca, Arsenal fans would be more pleased in seeing at least a few more members of the academy in contention for a starting lineup.
Under Wenger, it has been the scouting network that has got them some of their best players. Players like Henry, Vieira, Pires and Ljungberg were all not the biggest names and some were struggling when the Gunners brought them to England. Arsenal then went on to convert these players into world class players. While all of them were regarded as bright prospects, it was a risk with Vieira and Henry as the two of them had struggled at their previous clubs.
Then there are players like Kolo Toure, who was brought to the club from the obscurity of African football. Toure became a huge hit at the North London club and along with Sol Campbell, who incidentally happens to be a product of Arsenal’s arch rivals Spurs’ academy, formed the defense that provided the base for Arsenal’s Invincibles.
We Arsenal fans often rave about Arsenal’s youth academy when talking about Wenger’s youth movement. But what the Gunners actually have is a fantastic scouting network, one that spans Europe and is now starting to pick up talent from Asia as well. This scouting network has helped the Gunners procure talented players from across Europe and these players who are virtually unheard of before coming to the Gunners have become stars under Wenger.
It is not that Arsenal’s academy have never produced talented players. Arsenal’s academy have produced players like Tony Adams, the greatest defender to ever play for the Gunners, Martin Keown, the massively underrated, but nevertheless, key figure in Wenger’s early success and Pat Rice. But during Wenger’s reign as Arsenal manager, it has been predominantly the scouting network that have helped form the basis for the squad.
We must not confuse Arsenal’s youth academy with Arsene Wenger’s youth model. Arsene Wenger has used talent from across the world and not from within the club. But nevertheless, the focus has been on thrusting these youngsters onto the competitive level, sooner than most teams would.
But when I say that Arsenal’s academy is not as good as it is often made out to be, that does not mean that it holds no talent for the future. Five years from now, players like Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Benik Afobe, Kieran Gibbs, Emmanuel Frimpong and Henri Lansbury may all become mainstays in the Arsenal team and along with Jack Wilshere, could represent an Arsenal team that is dominated by academy graduates but until that day we must realize that it is the scouting network that has sustained Arsenal’s youth model and not the youth academy
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