By Sir Hardly Anyone
It has been many a long year since the broadcasters, blogs and newspapers had a big positive story about Arsenal, but today there is one.
Which is why they have studiously ignored it.
But I have to thank GoonerNews.com for pointing me to Football Talent Scout – on this occasion and their list of the Top 50 teenagers in world football.
The list consists of players born after 1 January 2001 – and Arsenal have three players in the top ten!
2. Eduardo Camavinga (FRA, 2002, defensive midfielder, Rennes)
3. Mason Greenwood (ENG, 2001, striker, Manchester United)
5. Rodrygo (BRA, 2001, winger, Real Madrid)
6. Gabriel Martinelli (BRA, 2001, striker, Arsenal)
8. Ansu Fati (ESP, 2002, winger, FC Barcelona)
9. Bukayo Saka (ENG, 2001, left-back, Arsenal)
10. William Saliba (FRA, 2001, centre-back, Arsenal)
To give the complete picture Arsenal don’t have any other players listed in the top 50, which might sound a bit naff, until you realise that no other club has three players in the whole of the top 50, let alone the top ten!
Chelsea who have been renown for scooping up all of Europe’s best youngsters and then farming them out on loan year after year after year, have just one player in the top 50. That Fifa transfer ban, and the lack of attendance of their Czar in chief at any home games in the past year, plus the abandonment of their stadium project after the Czar was refused a work residency permit, has meant the club has become less attractive all of a sudden.
Chelsea’s single player in the top fifty is Billy Gilmour, a Scottish central midfielder, who chimes in at number 11.
We might also expect PSG to be on the ramparts with their mega funding but it is possible that The Fifa / PSG / Swiss corruption cases which are studiously ignored by the British media are in fact taking their toll when it comes to scooping up the younger players.
And what of Barcelona? They have Fati in the top ten above, and the winger Pedri who is on loan to Las Palmas plus at number 42 Ilaix Moriba. So three in the 50, but only one in the top 10.
Manchester City, another club in trouble with the law, and now known throughout as the club with the wildest approach to negotiations ever seen in football (just look at how they dealt with Uefa while trying to argue that they were innocent of all charges by blaming the legal system for being corrupt and threatening to bring the whole thing down) have Eric Garcia, the centre back. And that’s all.
Of course Real Mad would be really mad if they weren’t in the list somewhere especially with Barcelona in such a financial pickle, and they have at number 27 Takefusa Kubo and at 41 Israel Salazar.
Liverpool won’t mind only have one player at number 48 (Curtis Jones) given their league performance this season – not an unbeaten season of course but way out in front at the top. But the trouble when you become this dominant is how on earth you give youngsters a game.
Here’s the rest of the top 50.
12. Myron Boadu (NED, 2001, striker, AZ Alkmaar)
13. Adil Aouchiche (FRA, 2002, central midfielder, PSG)
14. Jude Bellingham (ENG, 2003, central midfielder, Birmingham)
15. Thiago Almada (ARG, 2001, second striker, Velez)
16. Tanguy Kouassi (FRA, 2002, centre-back, PSG)
17. Pedri (ESP, 2002, winger, Las Palmas/FC Barcelona)
18. Eric Garcia (ESP, 2001, centre-back, Manchester City)
19. Sebastiano Esposito (ITA, 2002, striker, Inter)
20. Naci Ünüvar (NED, 2003, attacking midfielder, Ajax Amsterdam)
21. Giovanni Reyna (USA, 2002, attacking midfielder, BVB)
22. Fábio Silva (POR, 2002, striker, FC Porto)
23. Talles Magno (BRA, 2002, winger, Vasco)
24. Robert Navarro (ESP, 2002, attacking midfielder, Real Sociedad)
25. Karim Adeyemi (GER, 2002, striker, RB Salzburg)
26. João Pedro (BRA, 2001, striker, Watford)
27. Takefusa Kubo (JPN, 2001, winger, Real Madrid)
28. Ronaldo Camará (POR, 2003, central midfielder, Benfica)
29. Yari Verschaeren (BEL, 2001, attacking midfielder, Anderlecht)
30. Ryan Gravenberch (NED, 2002, central midfielder, Ajax Amsterdam)
31. Filip Stevanović (SRB, 2002, winger, Partizan)
32. Gabriel Veron (BRA, 2002, winger, Palmeiras)
33. Hannibal Mejbri (FRA, 2003, central midfielder, Manchester United)
34. Darío Sarmiento (ARG, 2003, winger, Estudiantes)
35. James Garner (ENG, 2001, defensive midfielder, Manchester United)
36. Adam Hlozek (CZE, 2002, striker, Sparta Prague)
37. Jérémy Doku (BEL, 2002, winger, Anderlecht)
38. Kang-in Lee (KOR, 2001, attacking midfielder, Valencia)
39. Benoît Badiashile (FRA, 2001, centre-back, AS Monaco)
40. Joelson Fernandes (POR, 2003, winger, Sporting CP)
41. Israel Salazar (ESP, 2003, striker, Real Madrid)
42. Ilaix Moriba (ESP, 2003, central midfielder,FC Barcelona)
43. Matías Palacios (ARG, 2002, attacking midfielder, San Lorenzo)
44. Lucien Agoume (FRA, 2002, defensive midfielder, Inter)
45. Joshua Zirkzee (NED, 2001, striker, Bayern)
46. Kacper Kozłowski (POL, 2003, central midfielder, Pogoń Szczecin)
47. Eduardo Quaresma (POR, 2002, centre-back, Sporting CP)
48. Curtis Jones (ENG, 2001, central midfielder, Liverpool)
49. Strahinja Pavlović (SRB, 2001, centre-back, Partizan)
50. Victor Mollejo (ESP, 2001, winger, Atletico Madrid)
Meanwhile Bild saying that Arsenal have shown ‘concrete interest’ in signing one of Bayern Munich star prospects, from their second team, Angelo Stiller. Metro, Sports Mole, Boot Room also carry the tale.
This is 19-year-old Angelo Stiller, a defensive midfielder who has been catching the eye of Gunners scouts with an impressive array of performances.
The story is the “scouts were ‘particularly enthusiastic’ about his performances in the UEFA Youth League and he is now reportedly firmly on their radar ahead of the summer transfer window.
“Stiller has one year remaining on his contract and is said to be keen to receive first-team football. With Guendouzi and Martinelli, as well as the crop of academy graduates, breaking into the senior set-up, Arsenal have proven that they are willing to hand young players the chance to start if they are ready” according to the renowned source Football London.
Thanks for that information Tony.
Given the Thousands of talented young footballers around the World, for one club, Arsenal, to have 3 in the top 10 is absolutely remarkable.
If as you suggest it is being almost completely ignored by the media that is an absolute joke and surely proof, if indeed proof were needed of just how differently we are treated by those numbnuts.
You surpassed yourself this time Tony
The two top teenage footballers in the world for me, don’t get a mention because the date 1/1/2001 as a date of birth is chosen. Yet players like Brautt Harland & Alphonso Davies both teenagers and top top drawer players aren’t mentioned.
Irrespective you criticise Chelsea for buying youngsters yet two of the named Arsenal players were purchased and not for insignificant sums. Add to that despite your assertions that no other club has three named players is , well just wrong as a couple of other clubs do ironically one has four players
with transfers potentially dampened due to the lockdown. will clubs invest more in youth?
Mike T………..please reread the article as Tony NEVER said that other clubs didn’t have more but that no other club had 3 or more in the TOP TEN. His criticism of chelsea was not that they buy youth players but that they HOARDE youth players by buying up as many of the promising youth as they can find and convince to come to Chelsea. There is quite a difference between buying 2 players, both of whom get first team games and CXhelsea’s approach of buying them up and shipping them out to other teams on loan. Please do try and read articles intelligently before jumping to conclusions Mike.
Opps, typo….HOARDE should read HOARD!
Well OMG I’ve just reread the article and it clearly says “no other club has has three players in the whole of the top 50, let alone the top ten”
I think perhaps you should reread an article before criticising others
After counting every player in the list, here is what I recorded:
1) Arsenal have 3 in the top 10 as Tony said,
2) Real Madrid have 4 in the top 50 of whom 2 are in the top 10,
3) Manchester United and Barcelona both have 3 in the top 50 of whom 1 each are in the top 10.
4) Ajax and Partizan have 2 each in the top 50 but none in the top 10.
So a correction is in order Tony, as Madrid, Barcelona and United do have 3 or more players in the top 50 but only Arsenal have 3 in the top 10.
Yes there are a couple of small technical errors in Tony’s (and subsequently OMG’s defence) but highlighting that is purely just an attempt at deflection because surely the whole point of the article is:
a) How remarkable it is for shitty old Arsenal, who apparently can do nothing right, have somehow managed to stumble upon, and or develop 3 of the best (top 10) young players on the planet.
but more tellingly,
b) How it is being almost completely ignored by the mainstream media. T
(Those are the points being made, and whether Madrid or any other clubs have just one more than us in the entire top 50 is pretty superfluous to those points. As I say, making something of that is pure deflection.)
For example in the SUN today I cant find a word about it.
Can you imagine the hullabaloo if it had been Spurs !
And as if by magic, just to show just how desperate they are to find a positive story about their trophy less little darlings we have this today in the Sun:
Apparently SON HEUNG-MIN has an award winning shot on him. Hmmm, hardly more news worthy than Arsenal having 3 young players in the Worlds top 10 you would of thought, ESPECIALLY when you read on and see it doesn’t even have ANYTHING to do with football ! Oh no, apparently the kind of shooting he’s won an award for is the kind of shooting that kills people as he’s won his award for shooting with a gun, not it seems with his boot.
So there you have it. The Sun considers a footballer having great potential for killing people as way more news worthy than a footballer having great potential as a footballer.
Maybe Arsenals remarkable achievement is all over SKY, BT, Talksport and the rest. Either way I’m sure with such observant posters ready to put Tony right for the merest slip will be all over it and let us know if it is.
There’s also 3 positive stories about their other darlings Liverpool.
One is an interview with Andy Robertson.
One about returning to training.
One about their 1992 FA Cup victory.
All of these are genuine stories, as are the 2 Spurs articles, but that isn’t the point. The point is how certain clubs, especially those 2, are endlessly reported in a positive light.
No matter how trivial, how far removed from the here and now, or even how far removed from reality, if it’s positive, it’s worth a mention.
Trying to find ONE positive story about Arsenal is as hard to find as a trophy in a white Hart lane cabinet.
Constantly pumping out positivity about something shapes opinion, it keeps the fans on-side, it keeps the fans happy.
Constantly pumping out negativity about something creates……..well I think we know what it creates because we see it around our club every day.
OMG
It’s worth starting at the very title of this thread.The list which is based on a individuals opinion isn’t listing the top teenagers in the world it’s lasting those that were born after 1/1/2001. It discounts a significant number of teenagers who haven’t hit the dizzy age of 20 . Two of whom I mention.
There are no doubts that the three Arsenal players are talents but two were purchased as I say . They haven’t been developed by Arsenal as 13-14 year olds their combined cost was what £30+ million. I am not knocking that I am pointing to the irony of Tony’s comments. Especially as one was out on loan.
I do read and hopefully comment with thought on articles and if I incorrectly call out a poster would think I would apologise
Any thoughts?
Mike T
If you don’t mind I have some thoughts.
You say “It’s worth starting at the very title of this thread” but I suggest it’s the first paragraph that is the crux of the article, which says:
“It has been many a long year since the broadcasters, blogs and newspapers had a big positive story about Arsenal, but today there is one.
Which is why they have studiously ignored it”.
Irrespective of the nuances of the data source, whether a player is on loan, acquired, home bred or whatever, surely THAT is the point of the article ?
As I have intimated above, irrespective of the articles source, accuracy and ultimately it’s credibility, if it had been about any club other than Arsenal, it would of been all over the tabloids, Talksport, and the rest, and you know it.
Yes, you usually do comment with thought, but in this case you do seem to be skipping over the primary point of the article, which is how such ‘positive’ news about us is being ignored by the mainstream media in a way it most definitely would not be, had it been about Spurs and Liverpool for sure, and most likely Chelsea and United as well.
I may be wrong, but that to me is the crux of the article, and as I say, pointing out the articles small summative errors is simply misdirection.
Nitram
First off it was very rude of me not to wish you all well in these challenging and worrying times.
As they say football is all about opinions
This article didn’t get picked up by the mainstream press or the likes of Talksport because the blog that first published this list is an obscure one which let’s face it based on Tony’s comments would have passed even him by if a n other hadn’t pointed he article out to him.
It’s nothing to do with the press not wanting to publish an Arsenal good news story this selection of players is almost a bloggers FIFA 20 selection without I suspect any knowledge of younger age groups at most academy’s but the author has purely selected from players that have made first team appearances and as Orwell nearly said “all leagues are equal but some are more equal than others.”
For me the very very best two teenagers in the world don’t feature and another half dozen or so teenagers such as , Phil Foden and yes I know they are Chelsea players but Ampadu and CHO would be in the worlds top teenagers.Even if you ignore these Chelsea players there is no way that Billy Gilmour warrants a place on the list after what 3 full games. This list clearly doesn’t represent the best players aged 19 and under.
As a total aside I attach a list compiled in 2012 as to who was rated by them as the worlds top 50 teenagers . It’s very interesting to see where they all are now
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1248005-50-best-teenage-footballers-in-the-world-right-now
As for good news about Arsenal it seems to me that just about every clubs supporters will argue a press bias against their club. Rarely do clubs have a sustained period of love ins with the media hacks.I personally don’t think Arsenal are treated any better or any worse than most PL clubs. As I say football is all about opinion
There was a seed change in terms of how the press viewed Arsenal and for me that happened around the time that AW was replaced.For me AW had the press in his pocket and had a far deeper intellectual grasp of matters than most if not all of the reporters meaning rarely did a journalist get the upper hand but also in that era Arsenal were a far different club to the one you see toady.
My point wasn’t about the quality of the three Arsenal youngsters or indeed any on the list it was more about how it purports to list the best teenagers in World football when clearly top talents are
being omitted . Also somehow Tony then turns it around to have a pop at Chelsea whilst getting a basic but significant claim he makes 100% wrong.
Mike T…………..noi apologies necessary but thanks anyway:)
Mike T
Thanks for your best wishes, and the same to you and yours.
If you cannot concede that there is an anti Arsenal bias in the media that is up to you.
yes, intellectually Wenger was always on a different level to most of the scribblers, but they determine how words are interpreted and what is put on the back pages, not Wenger.
Wenger was constantly derided as a failure, as where Arsenal, for the last 15 years of his tenure, despite maintain a top 4 place for over 2/3rds of it, on a zero net spend, then winning 3 FA Cups.
Talk sport, via Durham had a daily, I repeat DAILY article with the specific purpose of criticising all things Arsenal.
Please showing something equivalent for ANY other club.
Only recently Tony published just one days output from Foot.lon who basically published a negative Arsenal article at a rate of around 1 an hour.
Please show me where they’ve done that to any other club.
Just Google what the likes of Wright, Smith, Adams, Robson, Merson, Nicholas, the list goes on, have to say about Arsenal to see just how much negativity their is about us out there from our ex players alone.
Conversely please point me in the direction of all the ex Spurs, Liverpool, Chelsea players queueing up to criticise their old Club.
Google what the likes of Custis, Read, Beasley, Cross and the like have to say about Arsenal.
If you find 1 in 10 of the articles to be positive I’ll be amazed.
Look, it’s not really worth going there with this because frankly to deny Arsenal get an extremely bad shake from the media compared to just about everyone else is to deny grass is green. Sorry.
Keep safe.
And just another example.
Even today on GMB we have this from Morgan during an interview with scientist Robert Winston.
“Lord Winston, we are both massive Arsenal fans one of the benefits of this (The Corona Virus) is that we don’t have to go through the weekly agony of following Arsenal”
Even at this time we have a supposed ‘Massive’ Arsenal fan still having pops at Arsenal, this one of course following his un substantiated, ill informed attack on Ozil.
So please tell me which other Club has got a high profile media figure using this national crisis to have totally un justifiable pops at them and their players ?
So go on, name one other media figure insulting the club they support as Morgan is doing to Arsenal.