Ethan Nwaneri, a 15-year-old Nigerian midfielder, earned his Arsenal debut on Sunday against Brentford, and Ian Wright is pleased of him.
William Saliba, Gabriel Jesus, and Fabio Vieira scored in an excellent 3-0 win for Arsenal at Brentford to give them their sixth victory of the year.
At 15 years and 181 days old, Nwaneri made the Premier League debut record. He is the first player in the Premier League under 15 years old.
Harvey Elliott, a star for Liverpool, held the record for being the youngest at 16 years and 30 days when he played for Fulham.
Nwaneri also surpassed Cesc Fabregas’ previous mark for the youngest Arsenal debutant by doing so.
When he participated in a League Cup game against Rotherham in 2003, Fabregas held the all-time record for Arsenal’s youngest player at 16 years and 177 days.
Wright said: “I’m so proud of that for Arsenal, to get in the team at that stage, some people might think it’s a stunt, but those people – Mikel (Arteta), Per (Mertesacker), Edu are not putting him in there for a joke.
“They’re not going to bring people in just for the sake of it. They think very highly of him, he was playing for the U18s when he was 14.
“What I think this does is sent a massive message to the other academy players and shows them they all have a chance of playing in that first team.”
Following the game, Arteta commented on Nwaneri’s debut: “It was a feeling that I had yesterday (Sunday), I don’t know why.
“The first day I met him I looked him in his eyes and everyone was telling me about him, Per was telling me about him, and because of the injuries, we only have 12 or 13 senior players yesterday to put in the squad and we decided to bring him, and that’s it.”
