Cristhian Mosquera has been struck by the technical profile of a 15-year-old team-mate during Arsenal\u2019s preseason and early-season integration. The defender, who arrived in the summer, met Max Dowman while the squad was in Singapore and was immediately surprised by the teenager\u2019s level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mean to compare, but his style and way of playing is like Lamine Yamal,\u201d Mosquera told The Athletic. \u201cHis movements are Lamine-esque.\u201d Mosquera noted that he had faced Lamine Yamal four times during his time at Valencia, and that experience helped him recognise similarities between the two left-footed right wingers.<\/p>\n
Dowman had already been discussed among Arsenal supporters toward the end of last season when a run of attacking injuries thrust academy prospects into the conversation. As a Year 11 student he was not legally eligible to be registered at that point, but he has since made a tentative introduction to senior football this season that has drawn attention inside the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have him on my radar and when I got to Singapore, he was already training and playing,\u201d the young defender noted. \u201cWhen they told me he was 15, I couldn\u2019t believe it. He really is an incredible player, and I think he\u2019s going to be world class.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mosquera also pointed to other Hale End graduates as examples of a mature youth cohort. \u201cYou see 17 and 18-year-olds like Myles [Lewis-Skelly] or Ethan (Nwaneri) and they play like they\u2019re 30, like they\u2019ve been playing football their whole lives. It\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those young players form part of a club group that has been close to major honours in recent seasons, finishing as Premier League runners-up in three successive campaigns. Mosquera described an atmosphere inside the dressing room that combines belief and hunger.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look at each other in the dressing room, we see what\u2019s around us, and there\u2019s an atmosphere of winners that we ourselves believe in,\u201d Mosquera insisted. \u201cWe know we\u2019re capable, so why not believe in it? In recent years, things weren\u2019t going the way people wanted, the way the players wanted, the way the club wanted. But this year, people are very happy, with that optimism that this is going to be the year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristhian Mosquera likens 15-year-old Max Dowman to Lamine Yamal and praises Arsenal youth praised..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1019,199],"class_list":["post-3806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-creative-players","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806","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=3806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}