One of the greatest pleasures of fandom is watching a young player come through from the club academy to be a star player in the first team. Recruitment seems to provide the biggest frisson in football nowadays in the form of transfers; but I would argue that fans are just as excited by the emergence of an academy star as they are an expensive new signing. There is a greater romanticism around the academy player made good but youth products largely fill the same emotional space as a big money signing- the promise of a better future. Arsenal’s team has been transformed recently through the market with the likes of Gabriel, Thomas Partey, Benjamin White, Martin Odegaard, Albert Sambi...
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