This Willock thing really pisses me off. The outlook for us is extremely bleak, even if the unlikely and best case scenario of replacing Wenger with a superior manager happens this summer (this is why I think we need a visionary type, not just a potentially top manager like Allegri, but that’s a rant for another Sunday morning at 4 AM); we’ve got possibly the 3 best managers in the game in our league, all in charge of powerful economic teams (okay, Liverpool not quite as much), and then Poch is not far off in that discussion either (with apologies to @SRCJJ ), and then United of course is always a factor with their massive amounts of £. Where is our upper hand going to come from? The only thing I can think of is a successful youth and analytics policy (hence why I think we need a “”“visionary”"" type leading this, applying it on the pitch tactically and uniformly throughout the club)…yet here we are not only doing a good job of youth recruitment (just look at Dortmund and feel the shame), we’re not even holding on to our best young players, FFS. Hence why, Gnabry, and probably later this, with Willock–who sure, might not hurt as much as Gnabry, as he’s not as advanced, and probably will be lucky to have a Wilfried Zaha type career (though the potential is definitely there for more)–just is too much for me to take. @Craigie once made a post to a somewhat similar tune in the Gnabry thread. We have to at least do SOMETHING well. And going forward, we have to do do A LOT of things well to avoid having a totally fucked outlook, and I don’t think there’s much doubt that youth recruitment and development is going to have to be one of those things, considering that our competitors have bigger pull/resources to acquire the more obvious/expensive youth entities (see: Jesus, Sané, Martial, Utd’s supposed 100m+ offer for Mbappe), and obviously have far bigger pull/resources to acquire the more obvious/expensive non-youth entities (ie proven, expensive as fuck talent)…
Wenger said he wanted “half the team” to be our own products and I think that was 3 or 4 years ago. I assumed he meant those half would be as good as the other half so I really hope he’s not looking at it saying Hector, Francis, Theo, Alex, Aaron, they’re my boys.
It’s a real shame if we end up losing youngsters with promise. I’m not saying Willock is the next Sterling or even the next Townsend but until we know exactly what he is then it’s a waste.
I’m sure most won’t care though. He’s 19 and not proved himself so probably won’t be good enough in this world where we’re dreaming of signing top 18/19 year olds and where we’re a club that’s had Cole, Wilshere, Fabregas, Anelka, Bellerin etc.
For a little context though, a 19 year old Arteta was at Barca B then moved to Rangers a year later. A 19 year old Giroud was playing for a Ligue 2 reserve team before getting promoted to the senior team then going on loan to the 3rd division at 21. A 19 year old Koscielny was a reserve/bencher at a Ligue 2 club before joining a 3rd division club at 21. A 19 year old Mustafi was playing for Everton reserves then released a year later.
You never know until you know with a young player.
What Dortmund is doing is not youth recruitment though. Guys they sign are established professionals, in some cases even internationals. But yeah, we should go after players with the same profile as those players.
I think convincing them to come and to stay would be enough at this point tbh. I don’t like to make this whole Gnabry topic as emotional as Cuellar does and I don’t know what the visionary part really means, but there is definitely a problem when we lose a young player that we want to keep to a relegation battler in the Bundesliga.
The same goes with actually attracting these players to want to play for Arsenal.
In all fairness convincing players to come and stay at any level is a problem right now.
My opinion however is that all the gnabry tier players in the world hardly win us an FA Cup, let alone a premier league or champions league title. The way AC goes on you would think Neymar just left.
If he leaves, I hope not. Last thing we need is for the quality young players who would improve on some of the dross we have now to be leaving for a pittance or nothing in Willock’s case.
