BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - JULY 27: Dan Crowley of Birmingham City during the Pre-Season Friendly match between Birmingham and Brighton and Hove Albion at St Andrews (stadium) on July 27, 2019 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Arsenal are one of the biggest entities in English football. The club have had superstars don their colours and bring so much success to the club. The Gunners have always been on the lookout for the next best young talent.
They have often recruited players at a young age, matured them into world beaters and so on. However, there was always a flip side to it. There were countless players who failed to make the cut at Arsenal despite showing promise in the initial years. Below we take a look at 3 such players who could not replicate their youth level success at senior level.
It feels almost cruel to include Wilshere given that his meteoric decline wasn’t exactly his fault. A component of the youth academy, Wilshere’s talent meant that he slotted into the senior team without much fuss. A Champions League masterclass against Barcelona was when Wilshere shot to fame.
However, it has been all downhill since then. Injuries have ravaged his career and despite a loan spell to Bournemouth, Wilshere could never recover from all the toll that injuries had taken on him. He is currently a free agent, which seems hard to believe given Xavi once proclaimed him as the future of English football.
An unknown quantity when he arrived after Danny Karbassiyoon scouted him from the USA, Zelalem showed he had what it takes to be at the club, in a few preseason games. Mostly featuring for the U-23s, Zelalem never played a competitive game for the club.
Struggling with injuries, he could hardly make a case for inclusion in the senior team. After two loan spells to Rangers and VVV-Venlo, he was let off on a free transfer to Kansas City last year.
Crowley’s case is quite different than that of the aforementioned players. With so much fanfare around him during his youth team stint, it was expected that he would follow Wilshere’s footsteps to progress into the first team. He came very close by playing a part in pre-season games but was subsequently loaned out to Barnsley and Oxford United.
Off-field issues regarding behaviour resulted in early returns from loan spells. Arsenal could be faulted for how they dealt with the player, pushing him to the deep end too soon. Nonetheless, he never made a first-team appearance and moved to Willem II in 2017. Since then, he has fared decently and currently plies his trade at Birmingham City.
