“Maybe I should have done it earlier,” Mikel Arteta pondered in May after Myles Lewis-Skelly’s starring showing in Arsenal’s midfield during a 3–0 win over Fulham.
It had taken the Gunners manager a total of 19 months to decide to play the academy graduate in the position in which he had established himself as one of the premier talents in all of youth soccer, with those that had followed his development surprised by nothing other than how long Arteta needed to see the facts.
