Friday, November 11th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Walter Broeckx
Nineteen. And I don’t really mean the song of Paul Hardcastle about the Vietnam war. No, I’m referring to the age of Carl Jenkinson. Nineteen.
What a lovely age (or so it seems as I look back over my shoulder). An age when you are just adult but maybe you could still believe in fairy tales and maybe in a miracle?
I think it is fair to say that apart from the people who visited the former excellent Young Guns blog from Jamie Sanderson, not many had heard of Carl Jenkinson before he joined the Arsenal this summer. I certainly had never heard of him. And when we signed him we didn’t know what we were getting at the time. A young right back. Who had played 8 games for Charlton Athletic.
A part of the Arsenal fan base who have a tendency to get furious about such things got furious because Wenger was buying Jenkinson for £1m. And that at a time when Liverpool and Manchester United where paying sums of around £15m to £20m for defenders. Another example of Wenger have lost it.
So I was curious to see what kind of a player Jenkinson would be or become. What I liked from the first moment was the fact that Jenkinson had always been a Gooner. His family had (and still will have these days I think) season tickets at Arsenal for many years and he came whenever he could to see Arsenal play at the Emirates.
In the pre season games I saw a young player who had a very good physique. You could see that he could run around a bit, was rather fast and ran with big steps. A bit like an athlete. And I don’t know if this is correct but since then I have been reading that his father was a bit of an athlete in fact. If so then this could explain his ability to run as effectively as has been doing recently.
I remember in the pre-season games also that Jenkinson looked very nervous. But if you shared that view, just put yourself in his place. Even if you have passed the age of 19 like I did a long time ago you can imagine sitting in the Emirates as a Gooner and suddenly you are transformed into a situation in which Wenger is coming in to the stands and pointing his finger at you and saying: He you, get in to the dressing room, put on the shirt and play for the Arsenal.
Impossible? Yeah for you and for me. But in fact this is what happened to Carl Jenkinson.
He will have dreamed about it (as I have dreamed when being a kid about playing for my local favourite team – nobody came to me…). But would he have believed that it would happen let us say 2 years ago? If 2 years ago someone would have said to him: “In 2 years time you will be playing Champions league football for Arsenal and playing in the Emirates” would he have started laughing? Would he have considered this as a real possibility? He would have loved the thought, as we all would love it. But really to say: I will be an Arsenal player in 2 years time. Would he have believe himself if he would have said this?
And then suddenly it happened. That far away dream became a reality. He became an Arsenal player. A player of the team he supported from his childhood days. Now who wouldn’t be nervous when you had to play your first games? And as a result he had a bit of a difficult start. In the pre-season games he sometimes made mistakes. You could see him doing his best but the nerves were also very visible. So his performances where not up to the standard we are used to at right back. But well… being compared with probably the best right back in the EPL in the last 3 or 4 seasons is a bit hard on a boy at the age of 19. Being compared with Sagna is the last thing you need at that age.
I remember from the pre season games… that majestic own goal at FC Köln. I was there behind the goal in which he beat Szczesny with that high looping ball. This could have killed him off. And a week later in Portugal he also wasn’t lucky. So the mob was out after Wenger for playing him and for buying him. I even felt the need to write an article in which I said that it was important in these games to play him because it was in those games that he needed to adapt to a team coming from a third division team in to a top team in the EPL.
I said that the loss in such pre season games would later be the gain in the league if we had to play him. And we did have to play him. Sagna being injured a bit meant even that he had to play in that disaster game at Old Trafford where he even got sent off after a not so lucky performance. We should have bought Jones, Henderson, and every other right back and not that cheap unknown right back from Charlton who had hardly played in the 3rd division, was the word in some parts amongst supposed Arsenal fans.
And when Sagna broke his leg at Tottenham we only had that young bloke as cover at right back. But by that time this young player had been guided by the manager and the rest of the training staff. This young man had learned from his mistakes. And suddenly we saw that this unknown, uncertain at first young player became more certain of himself. And we saw a more matured player.
The difference between the Jenkinson in those first games and the Jenkinson of the WBA game is amazing. His running up and down the flank reminded me of Sagna. His crosses looked very sharp and some of them could have lead to a goal if an Arsenal player would have gotten at the end of it. His defensive work was excellent. And all this at the age of 19.
Jenkinson will make mistakes in the future. We can be sure of this. But all players make mistakes whether they are 19 or 29. The most important thing is that after only being in the hands of Wenger and the rest of the team for a few months this boy of 19 was playing like a right back of 29 against WBA. His progress in such a short period of time is amazing. And that is the most important thing. He has shown he is a learner. He has shown he can raise himself. He has shown that despite the most terrible start of Arsenal and him being involved in that terrible start he still has remained confident and made progress.
And as long as he keeps on progressing and getting better with each game he plays we maybe will look back in a few years and think once again: How on earth did Wenger spot this totally unknown player and made him such a great player once again?
And we will think: Just imagine how it must have been to get called from the stands and to play in the Emirates for the team you support. Well Carl knows how it must feel. Long may he stay and be what we hope that all players will be: Not just being a Gunner, but most of all being a Gooner on the pitch.
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Player perspective…
Carl Jenkinson played his first game for Charlton in the Football League Trophy Southern Section semi-final away to Brentford in December 2010.
On 16 August 2011, he made his Arsenal competitive debut in the qualifying round of the Champs League against Udinese as a second half substitute, replacing Djourou who was injured.
He made his Premier League debut against Liverpool on 20 August 2011.
He made his competitive international debut in the 2011 UEFA U19 Championship qualification. He scored his first competitive international goal in a 6–2 win for Finland against Moldova.
In total he played 8 games for Charlton 4 for Eastbourne Borough, and 10 for Welling United.
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