Mikel Arteta has pushed back against the idea that Max Dowman should be viewed through the same lens as teenage talents flourishing elsewhere in Europe, stressing instead the particular demands of the Premier League.<\/p>\n
The Arsenal manager used his press conference to underline the care required with a player who is still only 16. \u201cWhat we have to do is look after him\u2014he\u2019s 16 years old, you don\u2019t see that in this league,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cIn other leagues in Europe, that\u2019s a totally different context. But in this league, with the demands that the league, the players and everything puts on you, we really need to make sure every time we throw him in, he\u2019s in the right context with the right preparation, and that\u2019s what we are trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dowman has already taken up a remarkable share of the minutes handed to players aged 16 or under in the Premier League. Across the 2025-26 season, clubs gave that age group 167 minutes in total, with Dowman accounting for 157 of them. He will not turn 17 until New Year\u2019s Eve, yet he is already continuing to break ground in English football.<\/p>\n
His latest step came at Portman Road on Tuesday night, when he struck a composed brace. That made him only the second 16-year-old in Carabao Cup history to score twice for a Premier League club, according to Opta. The only other player to do so was Wayne Rooney in 2002.<\/p>\n
Rooney remains the rare teenage exception to the concerns Arteta raised. Built powerfully and already self-assured as a youngster, he later said: \u201cAt the time, at 16, I remember looking around the Everton first team and knowing I was the best player. I felt that,\u201d<\/p>\n
David Moyes clearly agreed, selecting Rooney in 37 of the club\u2019s 42 matches across all competitions that season, with 17 starts among them.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s own record with young players, especially in the Carabao Cup, is well established. The three youngest scorers for a top-flight club in the competition\u2019s history have all been Gunners, while Dowman, at 16 years and 258 days, came close to Cesc F\u00e0bregas\u2019s benchmark of 16 years and 212 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta says Dowman needs careful handling, even after his record-setting brace in the Carabao Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1067],"tags":[1066,180],"class_list":["post-19504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-carabao-cup","tag-carabao-cup","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}