Arsenal shocked the footballing world on Sunday afternoon when Mikel Arteta decided to substitute 15-year-old Ethan Nwaneri on for the final minutes of the match against Brentford. His introduction meant that he became the youngest player to ever play in a Premier League match at aged just 15 years and 181 days old.
Arsenal started the season excellently with six wins from seven fixtures which sees the Gunners sit at the top of the table heading into the September international break. This makes the debut of Nwaneri even more impressive due to the fact that he was able to break into such an in-form squad.
But, for him to achieve this landmark it certainly wasn’t an easy feat. There was a lot that had happened behind the scenes for him to finally be introduced on the first-team stage at such a young age.
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In 2021, he had marked his under-18s debut with a stunning strike against Reading at just 14-years-old, catching the eye of Gunners supporters who are hoping for big things from the promising talent.
Nwaneri has also been highly rated as a youth prospect. A former, unnamed Arsenal coach told VAVEL recently: “At the moment, we've got two U16s where if I had to pick out a top ten of all the players I've known of in 30 years of being at Arsenal these two would be in my top ten, they're outstanding.
"One is a boy called Myles Lewis-Skelly and the other is Ethan Nwaneri, and my biggest worry about them is if we can keep them because I would say all the biggest clubs in the country will be sniffing around trying to get them.”
Speaking after the 3-0 victory over Brentford, Granit Xhaka revealed his role in developing the attacking midfielder. It shows the leadership role the Swiss midfielder has at the club, even if he is no longer the captain.
Speaking about the youngster who was born in 2007, Xhaka said: “We have to check the passport first! I am joking. To have a guy who is 15 and is nearly 15 years younger than me. He looks old when I see him, but the club can be proud of a player like him. He has a big future. I am doing my coaching licence and I have trained the under-16s. You can see a big difference with him and the other guys. He is very, very special.
"You have to protect him as he is very young but if he keeps going like this with his hard work he has a big, big future.”
Interestingly, Xhaka continued by saying: “He is not with us a lot in training. I have maybe seen him twice or three times now.”
Nwaneri not being with the first team was a regular theme even on the day he made his debut. The Telegraph claim that as a 15-year-old Nwaneri was unable to get changed with the rest of the Arsenal squad and was made to get changed alone at the Brentford Community Stadium due to child protection laws.
Arsenal had recently announced their Premier League 25-man squad list which didn’t feature Nwaneri. Despite being limited to the selected squad of 25 in-between transfer windows, clubs are able to include players outside the squad who are under the age of 21. This is designed to allow clubs to blood young players if they want cover for injuries or want to rotate the team, and this meant that Nwaneri could be included in the matchday squad.
After the 15-year-old made his Arsenal debut, he received praise from Arsenal legend Ian Wright, who said: "I'm so proud of that for Arsenal. To get in the team at that stage, some people might think it's a stunt, but those people – Mikel, Per [Mertesacker], Edu – are not putting him in there for a joke. They're not going to bring people in just for the sake of it. They think very highly of him, he was playing for the U18s when he was 14.
"What I think this does is sent a massive message to the other academy players and shows them they all have a chance of playing in that first team."
Thankfully for Nwaneri, the Premier League does not have a minimum age requirement for a player to be able to feature in the match. This is not the case for the German Bundesliga where the minimum age requirement is 16-years-old.
After the match Arteta spoke about his decision to play Nwaneri, to which he said: "It was a feeling that I had yesterday, I don’t know why. The first day I met him I looked him in his eyes and everyone was telling me about him, Per was telling me about him, and because of the injuries we only have 12 or 13 senior players yesterday to put in the squad and we decided to bring him, and that’s it.”
The future certainly seems bright for Nwaneri. It is important that he continues on the same track and remains humble, as has been advised by legends of the game.
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