Glen Johnson has told Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports (12/12/20 at 2:20 pm) that he thinks Arsenal quartet Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock and Emile Smith-Rowe will go on and have ‘great careers’.
But the former England man did sound one problem that these young guns face at Arsenal and that’s the fact that there are no ‘leaders’ in and around them.
A number of the above Arsenal youngsters have featured in the Premier League this season, with Saka being the more regular and Willock being picked in the starting XI in recent matches.
With Arsenal sitting in the bottom half of the Premier League table, Johnson touched upon the Arsenal academy players – Saka, Nketiah, Willock and Smith-Rowe.
“The young kids coming through is probably the only positive going around Arsenal, at the moment,” said Johnson. “There are probably about four of them (Willock, Nketiah & Smith-Rowe, including Saka) that look like they could be fantastic players and go onto have great careers.
“At the moment, they have good footballing players but they just don’t seem to have any leaders. If you are going to put youngsters into this team where they are going to be asked to stand up on day one because so many times in Arsenal football matches where things go wrong and nobody says anything.
“There’s never, not digging a mate out, but rallying their teammate. They just accept any situation that goes on.”
It could be argued that Saka is the most talented out of the lot because there is no doubt that he has made the biggest strides.
The intelligence in which he has played the game has to be respected, whether he is occupying a defensive role at left-back or whether he is asked to work his magic in the little pockets in the final third.
All of that talent has resulted in him earning an England call and if he continues in his ways then he will be on that plane to the delayed Euro 2020 next summer.
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