MAX DOWMAN made quite the splash when he arrived off the bench in Arsenal’s 5-0 win over Leeds on Saturday.
The 15-year-old featured heavily in Arsenal’s pre-season build up, culminating in a place on the bench for the Gunners’ first home game of the campaign.
His introduction gee’d up an already electric crowd at The Emirates, who cheered wildly as he immediately began chasing down a goal.
His close control was evident as he darted between established Premier League defenders like it was second nature.
He seemed to glide across the pitch with the confidence of a youngster back on the playground, and looked nothing like a boy against men.
His confidence could be seen in the number of times he received the ball in his short time on the pitch, hitting two powerful but wayward strikes soon after his introduction.
His late winning of a penalty – a trick he had shown off in pre-season by winning a game-deciding penalty off of Newcastle‘s Joelinton – was an emphatic punctuation mark at the end of a stellar debut.
But had it not been for red tape, Dowman – who turned 15 on December 31 – may have made his senior debut last season, following in the footsteps of teammate Ethan Nwaneri, who became the youngest ever Premier League debutant at 15 years and 181 days in September 2022.
Having been registered for the U15s at the start of last season, Prem regulations state that no player under the U16s age group can be included in a match day squad.
It is the same in the Champions League, needing to be at least 16-years-old to feature.
Despite this, Dowman spent large parts of the previous campaign training with the first team, including joining the senior stars on their mid-season warm-weather trip to Dubai in February.
It was clear then that Mikel Arteta was courting the youngster for a role with the first team this season, but few could have imagined how stark and immediate his impact would come.
And now at 15 years and 235 days old, Dowman has finally made it to the biggest stage, just 54 days older than Nwaneri’s record.
And it could have been even sooner had the youngster not been given a holiday by Arteta which saw him miss the Emirates Cup and return too late to be included in the squad for the Gunners’ season opener at Old Trafford.
The Spanish manager told press that the teenager “hadn’t had any holidays, really,” presumably as a result of him going from his academy and schooling commitments straight into Arsenal’s pre-season tour in Asia.
Though it has felt an agonisingly long time coming, Arteta must have been ecstatic to see all the hard work of preparation come to fruition on the day.
He told Sky Sports after the game: “We have to gather all the information. It’s how he reacts and deals with the situation, what his team-mates think about him – which is clear, because they kept on passing him the ball.
“It is great to be able to change the energy in the stadium by bringing him in and he had an impact. He won a penalty on his debut at the Emirates. That’s incredible.
“It’s credit, first of all, to his family, the way these kids have been raised and the environment created. They are not overwhelmed by the environment and context.
“And the work of the academy, for helping to raise these kids in that manner with the confidence and understanding of the game at just 15 years old.”
Nwaneri, who turned 18 in March, also featured against Leeds, providing precedent to suggest that this latest talent out of the club’s youth system is not a flash in the pan or a managerial fad, but a name the Premier League better get used to.
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