Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta expressed strong admiration for 15-year-old midfielder Max Dowman following his impressive appearance as a substitute in the friendly against AC Milan. Dowman, widely regarded as one of the top young talents in England and Europe, tallied 17 goals and 10 assists from midfield in 22 appearances last season for Arsenal’s Under-18 team. He has also debuted with the Under-21s and occasionally trained with the first team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy with all the kids, I think they are able to play at that level, with 15 years old, in my opinion, because of the environment, and the culture that is within the team, and when somebody makes you feel so comfortable, so confident, straight away you can go and do it,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cObviously it gives you the best chance, you have to have the qualities that this kid has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite growing calls from fans to promote Dowman to the senior squad permanently, Arteta clarified no decisions have been made regarding his immediate future. He emphasized the importance of youth players adapting to the physical demands of senior football, stating, \u201cNo, we don\u2019t know, with all the young kids at the end, they are in and around the team constantly, and they are really used to the dynamics, the demands, and especially raising the physical levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta added, \u201cThe demands, and actually to be able to perform and impact the game at that level, it demands really, really high physical standards, and they are getting that, and that gives them another platform, and then they will have to earn it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dowman shared the pitch with fellow 15-year-old defender Marli Salmon and academy player Josh Nichols, 18. Established academy graduates Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri also featured. Arteta praised the academy’s contribution, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s very good. It\u2019s a lot of work, in our academy, all the coaches, people involved, and it\u2019s a moment to give opportunities, to reward them, and they certainly took the chance today, in difficult circumstances, against a very big team. It\u2019s incredible how, at 15 years old, they can perform at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mikel Arteta praises 15-year-old Max Dowman after strong showing against AC Milan in friendly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[178,193],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-friendly","tag-max-dowman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","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=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}