Having recently profiled Chuks Aneke, I thought, with the Carling Cup starting tonight for Arsenal, I would consider another of the potentials for this year’s campaign.
Sanchez Watt has been endanger of becoming the forgotten man at Arsenal having spent most of the last two seasons on Loan, mostly at Leeds United and originally in 2009/10 South end, whilst other pressed their claims.
Indeed, with the form of Benik Afobe, Watt looked likely to move on. However, with Afobe’s persistent groin problems and his own impressive pre-season and early season form, young Watt may yet get a chance to impress for the first-team.
Watt is fortunate that he is very flexible and can play anywhere across the front line, wide, central or tucked in behind the lone striker. Certainly in his 25 games for Leeds, during their promotion push last term, he featured equally as a winger or alongside Becchio up front. It is this flexibility which I believe ultimately has cost Carlos Vela at Arsenal. He, like Bendtner, wants to play through the middle and has been unable to, or unwilling to adapt to a wider striking role.
Indeed, Watt has a wise head on his young shoulders. When asked after his debut in 2009, where he wanted to play, the youngster said:
‘I’ll play anywhere, even defence. It’s good to be versatile. You can’t learn just one position during your career because you never know where you’ll end up. You might go on loan and the manager asks you to play left wing, you can’t say ‘sorry I can’t play there.’
Just the type of forward the boss admires. Watt can hold the ball up well and has surprising strength in a 5’10’’ frame, but equally has a burst of speed, a trick or two for wing play, as well as good crossing ability and, at 20, still has time on his side.
Sanchez Watt does have the flexibility, talent and willingness to play left, right or central and he may well get a chance in the Carling Cup against Shrewsbury tonight. It was in this competition that he burst onto the Arsenal stage in 2009/10, scoring on his first-team debut in a 2-0 victory over West Brom. He also featured in the next two rounds of the competition before we were eliminated, as well as topping the scoring charts for the reserves, despite spending half the season away from Arsenal. The previous season he had starred for Steve Bould’s Youth team, winning the League and F.A Youth Cup double, scoring bags of goals, mostly cutting in from the left. Let us not forget that Watt has also been selected for England at School Boy, U17 and U19 level.
So, will he be given a role tonight?
His early season form has been scintillating, scoring in all 3 of our reserve league matches to date. These goals have helped us to victories against Wigan and Man United, as well as a highly creditable 3-3 draw away against a Bolton side this week that featured many first-team players and internationals such as Wheater, Ngog, Tuncay and Holden. Sanchez also hit a hat-trick in one of our traditional pre-season fixtures against Borehamwood.
My guess is that Park will make his Arsenal debut down the middle tonight, with Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right and it will be between Ryo and Watt for the staring birth on the left.
It would be lovely to see another Arsenal London trainee breakthrough to join Gibbs, JW and Frimpong, but equally, I am sure some of us want to see the ‘Japanese Express’ in a first-team shirt as well.
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Let d young grows pls bring them in,i know arsenal football club has alot of talent.we need to let them in!