Manchester United Right To Stand Corrected By Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta
Manchester United Right To Stand Corrected By Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta. Arteta, who is the intelligent manager Arsene Wenger hired, is already proving that Manchester United’s bold statement was wrong. He has managed to win some important games and make a bright start to this season with less money than our neighbors to the north.
Alan Hansen was talking about how the current Manchester United youth team wouldn’t be able to compete in the 1995-96 season. He was, of course, referring to Sir Alex Ferguson’s young Manchester United side after they were defeated by Aston Villa 3-1. In hindsight, it was his inexperience and lack of experience for which he was referring to.
Though he once said the English league would only ever have four teams, and they would be Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, Hansen was proven wrong. In that season of 2012-13, the Red Devil’s won both the Premier League title and the FA Cup, starting what is now a series of trophies and titles in England for few years.
Although the start of the Premier League is not going to require the same vigor that Arsenal will give it, there are a few silverware chips on the table for them this term. Arsenal have done well so far in their Premier League campaign and could also win this year’s Europa League as well.
New Arsenal manager Unai Emery should have a tough time winning a trophy given the average age of their team is just 24.43 years, less than the same in other league. With 10-, 15- and 20-year old players, Emery has the youngest squad in Europe’s top five leagues, only rivaled by Valencia, Stuttgart and Southampton.
In recent transfer windows, Arsenal have collectively targeted those with a lower average age and have managed to assemble an energetic and exciting team. This offseason, the six players they sold or released averaged 26.83 years old while the five players they brought in averaged 23.8 years old.
With this policy in mind, the average age of players Arsenal sold or released last season was 28.7 and the average of players signed was 22.14. This pattern is also seen with Matt Turner, the only player over 26 that Arsenal has signed in the last three transfer windows.
The Arsenal squad’s median age of 27.2 years is the second lowest in Europe’s top five leagues behind only Borussia Dortmund, according to analysis by CIES Football Observatory. Amongst them, no player is over 30. In contrast, Stuttgart have zero players over 30 at this age and also have an average squad median age of 27
The Arsenal’s team has a total of 26.4% players aged 21 or under, which is the highest out of all European football associations. Chelsea’s squad is the oldest in the Premier League, where only 3 out of 25 teams have more players aged 21.
Arsenal’s recruitment policy has been the most efficient so far, and that could be enough to lead them to titles with Arteta driven to prove you can win things with ‘kids’.