This is a good week
For people (like me) who recognized the name but didn’t remember the details, he’s the guy who came off the bench against Brentford, and ended up breaking the record for the youngest player to ever play in a competitive match in a top-of-the-pyramid match (i.e. Premier League and First Division before the Premier League existed). That record had existed since 1964.
At the time, he was 15 years and 181 days old. When Cesc Fabregas played his first League Cup game for Arsenal he was 16 years and 177 days old, almost a full year older. Even Messi only made his first Barcelona first team appearance at 16 years and 23 days, and that was only a friendly.
Nwanieri started playing with the U18s at 14, and the U21s at 15. Now the only step up possible at Arsenal is to play for the first team, and he only turned 16 3 months ago.
And, to make you feel old:
Nwaneri was born after:
- Arsenal moved to the Ashburton Grove (sponsored by Emirates) stadum
- Dennis Bergkamp retired at age 37
- Twitter launched
- YouTube launched
- Italy won the 2006 world cup
- The ROBLOX game was launched
The last line is interesting, because he was definitely shopping himself around. I’m glad common sense prevailed though.
Any smart person will look at all the options available to them. Even if you are happily employed it’s always good to take a look at the market to see what’s out there so that you can make sure you are being fairly compensated
He never wanted to leave despite the rumors, we’re fucking massive!
We have a solid track record of giving youth a change so a smart move
Fantastic news, I wonder if he’ll be loaned out soon.
