Bring on the Gooner-Gunners « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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By Walter Broeckx
With Nico Yennaris making his debut against Leeds in the FA cup this month and making another appearance as a substitute against Manchester United we have seen another youngster making it in to the first team.
The 18 year old made his first starts at right back. Against Leeds he came in for Coquelin who was playing in that position despite being a midfielder. Coquelin was somewhat our 7th right back we played I think. Could have been 6th as somehow you could lose count at used and injured full backs at Arsenal this season. So midfielder Coquelin injured at right back and on came Yennaris, in fact another midfielder.
Against Manchester United Djourou who didn’t have the best day playing at right back as a central defender was replaced at half time and again Yennaris took the right back spot on the field.
And well it is fair to say that on both occasions he did a rather good job. He certainly couldn’t be blamed for anything that went wrong on the day. I can only really remember one time in the second half when he was left behind by Nani. And to come on as an 18 year old midfielder and having to play Nani who is one of the best wingers in the PL is not the easiest opponents you have to face.
Now we shouldn’t get carried away too much after those two appearances but it might be that we have another young player that has been at Arsenal from the youth. A London born young lad. And apparently not just a Gunner but also a long life Gooner.
I have seen a picture with Yennaris being the mascot at a game at Highbury when he still was very very young. Ref that day was incidentally Mike Dean. The same ref under whom he made his debut in the PL last Sunday. Yennaris also was a boy sitting in the stands at Highbury or the Emirates with his dad. Even going to Cardiff with his dad on the last 4 occasions we reached the Fa Cup final. One could say a real Gooner from a Gooner family.
This reminds me of another young lad we bought this season. Carl Jenkinson, one of the people who also played at right back this season before getting injured. Let us hope Nico Yennaris will not be facing the same in a few weeks time. But he also is a supporter of Arsenal and not just a player who comes there to make a living.
One of the things that looks not that important about the way Arsenal is conducting their business is the way players look at the club. But with the way Arsenal have been developing their youngsters we get now the first generation of what I would like to call the Gooner-Gunners.
A generation that isn’t just playing for “a team” in a certain period of their career. No a generation that has been at the club from almost the start of their career and who are also die hard supporters of that club.
Just look at another example of that generation. Frimpong. Still a very rough diamond and not just totally ready to do his job. In fact maybe his biggest problem might be the fact that he is such a big supporter of Arsenal himself. He wants to do so well for the club that at times he gets carried away a bit too much and commits silly mistakes by making fouls that get him send off. I think his loan spell at Wolverhampton might be the ideal way to make him think before the throw himself in at times.
But if you read the things Frimpong is saying about Arsenal it is clear that he would die for the club. A player that you can take to any war and he will fight for the colours of his beloved club. A player that has said that no matter how long it takes but he will stay until he is a first team player at Arsenal. Showing commitment to the club in a way that only supporters normally do.
Now I am totally aware of the fact that maybe in a few years time we will lose a few of them because if they really cant make the final and most difficult step Arsenal has to make a decision at some time in their career. But we can be sure that as long as they do their job at Arsenal it will not just be a job that is being well paid for, but most of all being able to fulfil the dream of playing for the club you really love.
With Jack Wilshere as the number one amongst the Gooner-Gunners we also have young players like Frimpong, Jenkinson, Yennaris who feel more for this club then just a working relation. Maybe even Oxlade-Chamberlain can be put in this category as he said recently that his boy hood hero was Thierry Henry. And there are more to come in the next years like those.
In fact if you look at some of the players we have been buying recently we can also see that some of those players have been Arsenal supporters from their childhood days. Mertesacker was an Arsenal supporter as a kid when it came to foreign clubs. He even had an Arsenal shirt as a young lad in Germany. Gervinho has been hoping to come to Arsenal from his very young days when he came to Europe as a footballer.
And the same goes for a lot of young players that have not been from England but who have come at a young age. Look at Szczesny. Another one that can be called a Gooner-Gunner.
How long will it take before we will be able to field 11 Gooner-Gunners? I don’t really know as you probably always will have some players you bring in later in their career. But I do have a feeling that even when we buy a player we try to see if they also don’t have some kind of long time sympathy for the club.
In a way it looks to me that in some 5 years time we will have a full squad of Gooner-Gunners at our disposal. When the now older players will be gone I have the feeling their replacements will be of the Gooner-Gunner type.
And I do think that this is a great thing to look forward too. Because from that day on we will know that every player on that pitch and on the bench will do his utmost best to make the supporters happy. Because as they are also supporters they only way for them to be happy is by making us happy. We will be sure that they will dig as deep as they can to make us happy and proud. And in that period we will have a team filled with players with Arsenal-DNA.
Some might say : what good does it bring us now today. I can only say: the road is long. A club with a history of 125 years is always a slow building process. Once those now still very young Gooner-Gunners will reach their peak in a few years time we will have something unique in the world that maybe only Barcelona has today: all players with the club DNA in their body.