Morning all.
According to ESPN, Arsenal are set to sign 16 year old Ecuadorian twins Edwin and Holger Quintero. Both are at Independiente del Valle right now, the club who once had Piero Hincapie and Moises Caicedo on their books.
The report states that the Quintero family have been in London this week to finalise an agreement which would see both move to Arsenal when they turn 18 in August 2027. Holger plays as an attacking midfielder while Edwin plays on the right wing and both have represented Ecuador at under-17 level.
Another player set to join Arsenal in 2027 is Victor Ozhianvuna who was signed earlier in the year from Shamrock Rovers but he should arrive in the January.
I think it’s great that Arsenal are looking out for the academy and let’s be honest, if we don’t snap up these bright young stars, other clubs will. Chelsea for one. The better our academy is, the better our first team might be in years to come. There’s no guarantee all three above will be Arsenal super stars in the future but it’s a cheap risk worth taking in my opinion. Plus, it’s not like it used to be when we signed youngsters but very few good first team players. Not many of those youngsters went onto to play for the first team on a regular basis, Anelka, Fabregas and Walcott being just three of the exceptions.
Back to the first team though and as far as our attacking players go, things are looking up. Madueke and Martinelli have now featured in two fixtures each, Odegaard had a brief return in the week before a second runout against Chelsea and in addition to them, Jesus was on the bench at the weekend too. Hopefully, Trossard will be back in contention for tomorrow’s match against Brentford. However, nothing seems to well for Arsenal all at once as just as our attacking players return, our defence has been struck by the injury curse with both Saliba and Gabriel out of the side so there’s a good chance both Hincapi and Mosquera will be paired together again tomorrow night. The more they play together, the better the partnership should become.
The officials for tomorrow’s game are: Tony Harrington is the man with the whistle while Steve Meredith and Sian Massey-Ellis are his assistants. Sam Allison is the fourth official, with James Bell on VAR and Blake Antrobus as the assistant VAR. Must be honest, only Sian Massey-Ellis is a familiar name to me. Harrington was born in Yorkshire and has only officiated one Arsenal game, a 3-1 victory over Southampton however, he has officiated Brentford on many occasions back when they were a Championship club. Harrington would have to be one of the worst referees in the world to be as bad as Taylor was on Sunday.
Brentford won’t make things easy for us tomorrow, why would or should they but I can’t see them being as “dirty” as Chelsea. Disruptive I’m sure but hopefully there will be no potential bone breaking challenges from either side.
Catch up in the comments.
Arteta on injury news…
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta:
On William Saliba: “I’m not going to be able to help you much today because we have a training session later on. Until that happens, we don’t know what’s going to happen with the doubts that we have. “He had a little niggle, but I think it will be a matter of days, let’s see if he can be available tomorrow.”
Leandro Trossard: “A matter of days too.”
Kai Havertz: “A matter of weeks. Let’s see how he evolves in the next few weeks. He’s doing really well, doing stuff on the pitch. I think he needs some time.”
Gabriel: “Which Gabi? We have a lot. Big Gabi? He’s doing really well, but he needs weeks as well.”
Perhaps Saliba and Trossard should be saved for Aston Villa,I’m not underestimating Brentford but I back us against anyone at home.
Makes sense to me Limey. Natural rotation..
Afternoon Gooners.
Afternoon Rico, not a lot to report since the battle of the bridge, a lot of post match revisionism and comment from those in the media who aren’t worth listening to but never shut up regardless. It is what it is I guess.
Yeah, I’ve been going on for awhile about Arsenal spreading its net wider than London when scouting for youngsters. So those two South American lads sound very interesting and of course there’s bound to be other youngsters our academy are watching, trialling and signing all the time. The age restrictions are an obstacle but always there’s a way around them.
I was watching YouTube yesterday and a video of an Arsenal youngster by the name of Luis Munoz popped up, he’s only 13 and I know that these vids can make players look like Maradona but I’m telling ya if he’s only half as good as he looked on that video then we’ve got another Max Dowman…
Luis Munoz: remember that name!
Afternoon Kev, I’ve locked that name in my brain. Trouble is, after a nights sleep, I’ll have forgotten it.. 😜
I just watched the YouTube clip. He is amazing for such a young player..