It is a prerequisite that the most fundamental aspect of youth football is development. Seeing players, as Alex Iwobi has done this season, break into the first-team squad is the reward for the years of hard work that the club put into fine-tuning the ability of young prospects. Youth team matches, then, can be seen as more of a competition between the players involved in their respective quests to make it to the top as opposed to pinning much importance on the overall outcome of the game itself. In some circumstances, however, winning at youth level can be very important indeed. Arsenal U21s have concluded their second season in the second tier of second-string football, and, having...
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