There are many similarities between Bukayo Saka, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly. The most obvious of these is that they are all Arsenal academy graduates and are now members of Mikel Arteta’s first team. Furthermore, all of them are young left-footed footballers, versatile, determined and exceptionally talented.
If you had to ask By Mertesacker However, if what this trio has in common, you might get a different answer. Arsenal’s youth director sees these situations from a different angle and points out that Saka, Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly have another common trait: they all came to the club before the age of nine.
Could Arsenal have known then, when these players were so young, that they would one day break into the first team? Of course not. But the club’s coaches could certainly see the potential and definitely knew the importance of attracting these youngsters to Arsenal at the earliest possible age.
“Every year the group of children under nine is almost the largest age group,” says Mertesacker. “That’s where the resources go and also where I need to present them to parents. At that stage, when you’re under eight, you might have offers from five or six clubs in London.”
Not long ago, Mertesacker’s professional life involved tussles with rival centre-forwards, as an imposing defender for Arsenal and Germany.
Nowadays, their battles are often over young talent, as Arsenal’s academy competes with other clubs in the capital for the same talented youngsters. “I wouldn’t call it an under-eight transfer market (but) it’s probably close to that,” he says.
Can you even say, at the age of seven or eight, how good a player he might be? “When you go down to Hale End, where the pre-academy trains, you see their skills,” Mertesacker says. “I compare it to my time: I think I could run in a straight line. Now there is a technical element to this. You can see it.
‘The sub-nine team really builds the foundation of your team’
“Obviously it’s early and at that age you make it fun. You turn it into playtime, you turn it into musical time. It is a fundamental phase, in which they need to express themselves as much as possible.
“But still, there are traits. You see the behavior of the player, you see the parents. You want to build a really positive and inclusive environment there. The under-nine class really lays the foundation for your team.”
On Wednesday night, Arsenal’s League Cup campaign continues with a trip to take on Preston North End. So far this season, the competition has been memorable for the club’s youth team: against Bolton Wanderers in the previous round, seven current or former youth players featured in their 5-1 victory.
Four teenagers made their debuts, including 16-year-old goalkeeper Jack Porter. “A truly inspiring evening,” says Mertesacker. “We want to take advantage of that.”
For Mertesacker and Arsenal’s academy staff, developing a first-team player is obviously the ultimate goal. But it is far from the only measure of success, and the German makes it clear that the club is as focused on developing good people as it is good players.
“Football talent gets you into the building,” he says. “It is the character that sets the ceiling. Kicking the ball is not enough. We are big on respect and humility: you are here to respect yourself and improve, but you must also respect others and the environment.
“Respect, discipline and humility – those are three key traits to being a decent human being, but there is also the basis that you will 100 per cent become a better player if you have those traits. By doing that, you have a better chance of becoming a professional footballer.”
Lewis-Skelly, the 18-year-old left-back, is clearly one of those who has the personality needed for senior football. He showed it in his debut in the Premier League, against Manchester City, when he faced Erling Haaland after the final whistle.
“He wants to be the best teammate he can be,” Mertesacker says. “It just comes from those traits: how can he be included and integrated into the first team, how can he protect and be around his teammates? “That’s what he did there.”
An inescapable truth for Mertesacker is that the improvement of Arteta’s first team in recent seasons has made life more challenging for the academy. As the senior squad has progressed, it has become increasingly difficult for young players to make the jump from youth football to Premier League action.
Perhaps fearing that the leap was too great, or that the opportunities were too few, some promising players have chosen to leave Arsenal in recent times. Players like Chido Obi-Martin, Amario Cozier-Duberry, Reuell Walters and Lino Sousa have left for other clubs.
Interestingly, all of those players had joined Arsenal well beyond the under-9 group. They were not as involved in the club and its culture as Saka, Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri.
Clearly, another benefit of signing players as soon as possible is that it strengthens their bond with the institution. Nwaneri, for example, rejected lucrative offers from other Premier League teams. stay at Arsenal.
None of this is to say that Arsenal’s youth recruitment team is only interested in signing the best eight-year-olds. Post-Brexit, the club has renewed its focus on identifying and attracting the country’s most exciting teenage talent, with further investment now being made in those areas.
“Brexit restricted the movement of European talent coming here,” says Mertesacker. “Arsenal had been very successful in achieving that combination. “That was really important, but now it’s closed, so national recruitment is more important and London recruitment is more important.”
As is always the case with academic football, it will be years before Arsenal know if the decisions they make today are the best ones for the future. Youth football is an uncertain world.
However, the presence of all those academy players on the field against Bolton, and perhaps again against Preston, is a sign that the connection from their academy to the first team remains strong. For players like Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly, that process was almost a decade in the making.