Max Dowman started for Arsenal against Mansfield Town on Saturday lunchtime, becoming the youngest player in the club\u2019s history to start an FA Cup game. The 16-year-old, recorded at 16 years and 66 days, helped the visitors to a hard-fought 2\u20131 win at Mansfield\u2019s Field Mill.<\/p>\n
Dowman\u2019s display stood out. He was younger than every Arsenal goalscorer from that Under-18 cup clash and still conspired to tie Clough\u2019s Mansfield side up in knots with the best performance of any visiting player during the match. The rugged turf presented a clear challenge for the senior squad, yet the teenager adapted quickest and carried the ball with an ease that belied his experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery proud,\u201d Arteta gushed when confronted with the fine showing delivered by his school kid in midfield. \u201cMax, I think, was exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta also placed the result in historical context. \u201cI think Max is the youngest ever in the competition [for Arsenal],\u201d Arteta correctly surmised, \u201cand this competition has been going for a while, so it tells you how difficult that is.\u201d Arsenal\u2019s first FA Cup appearance came back in October 1889, almost 137 years ago. The club were then known as Royal Arsenal and were once mistakenly left out of the draw. Over the subsequent 13 decades Arsenal have won the competition 14 times, but never before had a starter as young as Dowman.<\/p>\n
At senior level Dowman has been used on the right wing, but Arteta trusted him in a more central role against Mansfield, giving him licence to drift wide, collect the ball and drive forward. Observers noted his control on poor surfaces. \u201cWhen the ball is bouncing all over the place and you have people in your back, the way he handles time and space and the touches that he takes, it\u2019s just incredible,\u201d Arteta beamed. \u201cEspecially at the speed that he delivers those actions, but that tells you the talent that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
The start will be recorded in the club\u2019s appearance records and offered a reminder of the pathway from academy to first team for promising teenagers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Max Dowman, 16, became Arsenal’s youngest FA Cup starter; Arteta praised his composure. showing more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303],"tags":[1446,1081,1484],"class_list":["post-7876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","tag-academy","tag-adaptation","tag-appearance-record"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7876","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=7876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}