Speaking on the Highbury Squad YouTube channel, Jason Cundy has been discussing Ethan Nwaneri and Mikel Arteta’s decision to make the teenager the youngest player in Premier League history.
Nwaneri broke Harvey Elliott’s record earlier this season when he came off the bench against Brentford, and Cundy has taken a rather critical stance.
Indeed, Cundy says that this was nothing more than a PR stunt, stating that Nwaneri was only picked to give Arsenal a headline.
Cundy made his point by comparing Nwaneri to Cesc Fabregas, claiming that he’s not as good as the Spaniard was at this age, in turn, suggesting that he doesn’t deserve the accolade of being the Premier League’s youngest player ever.
PR stunt
Cundy spoke about Nwaneri and his debut.
“I think this was a PR stunt, I called it out at the time and I stand by it. To put a boy in that position, even Arteta has said he only saw him train two or three times, you don’t use a player in the Premier League if you’ve only seen them two or three times,” Cundy said.
“I felt it was a decision made about Arsenal and Arteta rather than looking after the kid. Basically what we’re saying is that this kid is better than Fabregas. We’re basically saying that aren’t we? I think so because Fabregas didn’t make his debut at 15, Wilshere didn’t make his debut at 15, Saka didn’t. We’re putting him in a category here that can be quite dangerous.”
Fair point
Cundy’s comments won’t be popular, but we understand where he’s coming from.
It really seems as though Nwaneri was given a couple of minutes against Brentford for the sole reason of breaking this record, not because he was the best option off of the bench.
As Cundy says, you don’t put a 15-year-old into a Premier League match after seeing him train a handful of times, and the fact that we’ve not seen Nwaneri since speaks volumes as well.
Nwaneri could go on to become a gem, but it does seem as though he’s been handed this early debut for the wrong reasons.
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