Arguably Arsenal’s most successful academy over the past decade has been their academy.
The arrival of current England players Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and Miles Lewis-Skelly into the first team from Hale End has caused great excitement over the past decade.
Many more talents are on the way or have already graduated, including Max Dauman, Marli Salmon and Andre Harriman-Annus.
Recent successes have enabled Arsenal to successfully continue their modern tradition of giving a teenage player their first-team debut every season since the 1998/99 season.
That is why the sacking of academy manager Per Mertesacker is a huge blow to the Gunners. The German will step down from his role at the end of the season and look for a new challenge.
And while anyone in football could be replaced, this would mean an important and popular pillar of Arsenal’s current structure being removed.
This is a key ally of Mikel Arteta. The pair joined Arsenal at exactly the same time as players on Deadline Day in 2011 and went on to become some of the key leadership voices in the dressing room under manager Arsene Wenger. The pair also won the FA Cup together as team captains in 2015.
But importantly, Mertesacker has led an excellent academy process since taking over in 2018. Since then, Arsenal have seen a wave of players emerge from Hale End.
Saka and Smith Rowe, Ethan Nwaneri and Lewis Skelly also came together. Now, Dauman and Salmon are working together to get through it. And as Williams says, “If you can get two all year long, that’s a success.”
Mertesacker’s academy structure sparked a wave of young players at Arsenal, including Bukayo Saka and Smith Rowe.
“What’s unique about Arsenal is that we have a World Cup-winning academy manager,” says Temisan Williams, who worked in Arsenal’s academy and coached the likes of Dauman and Salmon.
“Having a player who has been at the top of his game means he knows what it means to get there and what he needs to do to get there.
“When you talk to him as a coach, he brings patience and calmness to those around him, which brings peace to the players as well.
“Academy football is an environment where very few people make it to the first team, but he has made it an enjoyable environment.”
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Check out our selection of Saka’s best Premier League goals for Arsenal
The reason why Mertesacker is so popular at Arsenal is because of his personality. During his playing days, the German was known for his cheerful personality in the dressing room.
But he also has a serious side. Mertesacker was also one of the key figures driving the culture that Arteta helped transform.
“The first thing you notice about Parr is that he remembers all the names of the coaches, parents, and especially the players,” Williams says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re 9 years old or 16 or 17.”
How Mertesacker created a “strong young gunner”
At the outset of Arsenal’s statement announcing Mertesacker’s departure, the club referred to his project to create a project called “Strong Young Gunners”, which would guide the entire process of bringing young players through age groups.
As part of Mertesacker’s academy philosophy, the “Powerful Young Gunner” consisted of four main parts.
Champion Mentality Lifelong Learner Effective Team Player Effective Doer
Champion mentality is a phrase often used by key figures in Arsenal’s academy. It’s the same phrase used by the club’s scouts when Saka arrived, and there are multiple areas where players need to show a ‘champion mentality’.
A lot of it happens in the field. “It boils down to football leadership,” Williams said. “How do you do it on and off the pitch? When you’re on the pitch or when you go to a tournament, what’s the mentality you show to win?”
“Do you try just as hard when things go well as when they don’t? Do you encourage your teammates?”
But other parts of a champion’s mentality include how they approach their analysis sessions and training in the gym, and how they look out for each other when it comes to eating off the pitch.
One common way to test champion mentality is to move players up one or two age groups. So was Dauman, who had been playing U18 soccer since he was 13 years old. Nwaneri played for the Under-21s when he was 15 and 16 years old.
Max Dauman, now 16, was playing for Arsenal as an Under-18 when he was 13.
A lot of it is preparing players for first-team football scenarios. If they make their debut at 17, they will be facing players who are at least 10 years older and in their prime.
“In terms of being around older, faster, stronger players, it’s unreasonable,” Williams says of moving Arsenal’s players up an age group or two.
“How do you bring that mentality to bear when you’re facing even greater challenges than your age group?”
Part of a champion’s mentality is being a lifelong learner. It’s how well academy players pick up new information, be it new skills, positions, or tactical information from different managers.
“It’s about how you show that you’re always learning, getting new information and being ready to execute and continue to do that throughout your Arsenal academy career and beyond,” Williams says.
“If you want to be the best player, you have to be the best person.”
However, lifelong learning has special importance because it turns out to be very important for those who do not succeed as professional athletes. “The reality is that the vast majority of these players are not going to play professional football as a long-term career,” Williams added.
Education is a key part of that, and Mertesacker’s Arsenal regime is very keen on academy players taking their academics as seriously as their footballing skills.
But it’s not just GCSEs that Arsenal are pushing their players through. The club encourages players to play musical instruments, which could help them later in life.
Mertesacker was the driving force behind this. “It’s about showing that you’re good at other things, too,” Williams says. “He said, ‘Even if you don’t make it as a professional player, we’ll be proud of you.’
“We’re not highlighting these skills as alternative options. Rather, this is something you can do as well as being a professional player.”
“If you’re purely focused on football and it doesn’t work out, you might end up struggling. So many people end up in their 30s and struggle to try other things.”
Effective team player is another important offshoot of the “champion mentality” and this skill is divided into two sections: individual and collective.
“The important thing is to understand what you can do individually, understand your super strengths and how that can support the team in terms of your playing identity and playing style,” Williams says.
Saka has worn the Arsenal captain’s armband many times.
“We want them to express themselves as individuals. It’s the individual who goes to the first team, but it’s also in the context of trying to understand how you contribute to the team.”
This is where it becomes important for athletes to pay attention during analysis sessions. It’s about understanding why the team as a whole uses certain tactics, such as pressing high or playing from the back.
Placing players in higher age groups also helps to see if academy players tick the “effective team player” box.
“If you look at Max, Ethan, Miles and Saka, their understanding of being effective team players comes from having to mentally process at a faster rate and make decisions faster,” Williams says. “They need to recognize those situations a little earlier.”
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And finally, Premier League tests are carried out on academy players every two to three years, and Effective Movement analyzes football adjustments. Strength and conditioning are important parts of a player’s development in the academy, but patience is also required in this department, given that some players can develop in the future.
There, developing the technical skills of an effective mover is as important as the player’s natural strength.
“On the pitch, how can we use our players to play football effectively? If you can’t receive the ball 360 degrees, it’s going to be difficult.”
How will Arsenal replace Mertesacker?
Merteskakar’s Strong Young Gunners program has had positive results and is still ongoing.
Saka, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly, Dauman, Salmon and Harriman-Annus are already named in the first-team squad, with more to come.
Marli Salmon became Arsenal’s youngest FA Cup player at the weekend
While there is a lot of faith in academy goalkeeper Jack Porter, who made his first-team debut last season, Emerson has another Nwaneri brother, currently in the Under-18s, who is touted as an excellent utility player.
At the top end of a football club like Arsenal, change can be a good thing. The loss of Edu Gaspar to Evangelos Marinakis’ side last season was seen as a blow, but Arsenal took advantage of the opportunity to sign Andrea Berta, with many marveling that the club currently has the best sporting director in the squad.
But it would be a long journey to find an academy director who gained experience at Arsenal as a player, won the biggest trophies in club and international competition, and achieved such success with his academy.
