Profiles on Arsenal’s Academy Stars in 2024/25 Pre-Season Squad

Highlights

  • Almost half of Arsenal’s 26-man pre-season squad for the 2024 US tour are academy players.
  • The Gunners will face Manchester United and Liverpool in a series of friendlies across the width of the US.
  • Mikel Arteta can call upon a Premier League record-breaker in his youthful squad.



Mikel Arteta’s senior Arsenal side is still very youthful. The Gunners have boasted one of the top flight’s three youngest squads in each of the last three Premier League seasons, building around the embryonic core of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba.

The club’s pre-season squad this summer is even more junior. Almost half of the 26 players jetting off on Arsenal’s US tour are academy players. This is partly a consequence of numerous senior pros featuring heavily at this summer’s international tournaments – only Manchester City players racked up more minutes at Euro 2024 than Arsenal’s contingent. But the Gunners have a particularly bright crop of exciting potential to draw from.


While he clearly trusts youth, Arteta has not always stuffed his pre-season squad with so many academy talents – the 2023 tour of the US only included one junior player. Amario Cozier-Duberry won’t be returning for this year’s bout of friendlies against the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool after signing for Brighton, but there is a glut of prodigious youngsters to look out for.

Arsenal’s Academy Stars in 2024/25 Pre-Season Squad

Player

Position

Year of Birth

Tommy Setford

Goalkeeper

2006

Lucas Nygaard

Goalkeeper

2006

Alexei Rojas

Goalkeeper

2005

Josh Nichols

Defender

2006

Ayden Heaven

Defender

2006

Omar Rekik

Defender

2001

Michal Rosiak

Midfielder

2005

Myles Lewis-Skelly

Midfielder

2006

Ethan Nwaneri

Midfielder

2007

Salah–Eddine Oulad M’Hand

Midfielder

2003

Jimi Gower

Midfielder

2004

Charles Sagoe Jr

Forward

2004


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Tommy Setford

Born: 2006

Tommy Setford was born in Haarlem, a 40-minute drive away from Ajax, the Dutch club he would represent at youth level for the best part of a decade, but he has always considered himself English. Thanks to his father’s influence, Setford has consistently pledged his allegiance towards the Three Lions, accepting call-ups for England’s under-16s all the way up to the under-20s.


For the first time in his life, the young goalkeeper will actually live in England. Arsenal prised the promising shot-stopper away from the Amsterdam giants in July for a fee in the region of £1m. Setford’s older brother, Charlie, is also a goalkeeper in Ajax’s youth system, but Tommy has been keen to stress the differences between the siblings. While Charlie is “calculated”, Tommy describes his style of goalkeeping as “based on intuition”. Whatever approach Setford takes is unlikely to be swayed by the crowd. “I don’t care if 40,000 or 40 people are watching,” he once confidently declared.

Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Goalkeeper

Joined Arsenal

21st July 2024

Lucas Nygaard

Born: 2006


There has been a dizzying churn of goalkeepers across Arsenal’s various age levels in recent years. While Aaron Ramsdale and David Raya have engaged in a public scrap for the number one position at senior level, Arsenal released several academy shot-stoppers during the summer of 2024. Lucas Nygaard was snapped up to fill a widening void in this department.

The 18-year-old Danish goalkeeper spent the first six months of 2024 as a free agent after leaving FC Nordsjaelland. Rather than derail his development, this half-gap-year allowed Nygaard to train at Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal before settling on the north London club. Denmark’s under-18 manager Lasse Stensgaard continued to select an unattached Nygaard for the national team simply because he was clearly the best available player.


Lauded for his passing ability and fierce winning mentality, Stensgaard was also keen to point out that the “playmaker” has improved his handling skills in recent years. The national team coach stressed that his prodigy is “also good at what is actually written in the job description”.

Career Details

Nation

Denmark

Position

Goalkeeper

Joined Arsenal

26th June 2024

Alexei Rojas

Born: 2005


The only senior goalkeeper Mikel Arteta has taken to the US is the long-serving third-choice option Karl Hein. Ramsdale and Raya both sat on the bench to watch England and Spain duke out the Euro 2024 final, earning themselves an extended holiday. Unlike Arsenal’s other two junior goalkeepers, Alexei Rojas has been part of the club’s youth system since 2019.

The Basildon-born, Colombia youth international also has Russian heritage and signed his first senior contract for the Gunners in mid-July 2024. Rojas endearingly thanked everyone “from the coaching staff to the cleaners, the chefs, the security guards, the groundsmen” when he fulfilled a childhood dream of officially becoming a professional footballer.

Career Details

Nation

Colombia

Position

Goalkeeper

Joined Arsenal

18th March 2019


Josh Nichols

Born: 2006

The boyhood Arsenal fan came close to signing for West Ham United and only turned Chelsea down because of the commute. Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal’s biggest rivals, were very interested until the Gunners belatedly swooped in to snap up one of their own.

Part of the club since joining the under-nines side, Josh Nichols has gradually been shifted back from striker to right-back. The jet-heeled former long jumper hares forward when the opportunity presents itself, scoring twice for the academy last season, but scarcely shirks his defensive duties. During his first anxious training sessions with the first team, Nichols recalled: “There have been a few times where I’ve done well in one-v-one defending,” but conceded, “a couple of other times, it has been difficult.”


Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Right-back

Joined Arsenal

30th March 2016

Ayden Heaven

Born: 2006

Like so many young players, Ayden Heaven excelled in junior football thanks in part to his early development. As the boyhood Gooner admitted himself: “I’ve always been quite tall so I had the benefit of using my physical attributes against the other players, who were usually much smaller than me.”


But those natural gifts can only hide so many flaws. The wonderfully named Heaven has earned his call-up to the senior squad thanks to an array of technical gifts and tactical appreciation. The versatile defender, who stands at 6ft 2in, has admitted that first-team training sessions initially left him “dizzy sometimes because it’s at such a quick tempo”, but Heaven has quickly caught up to the rapid pace.

Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Defender

Joined Arsenal

5th November 2019

Omar Rekik

Born: 2001

Omar Rekik in action for Manchester City


Omar Rekik is still technically an academy player but is only three months younger than Bukayo Saka, who has been a regular in Arsenal’s first team for the past five years. Rekik had already been on the books of Feyenoord, Manchester City, Marseille and Hertha BSC before joining the Gunners’ under-21 side as a 19-year-old.

The Dutch-born Tunisia international had a promising loan spell at Wigan Athletic cut short by a nagging knee injury last term. After returning for treatment at Arsenal, Rekik failed to secure the requisite paperwork to ever make a competitive appearance for Swiss side FC Servette during the second half of the 2023/24 campaign.

Career Details

Nation

Tunisia

Position

Defender

Joined Arsenal

7th January 2021


Michal Rosiak

Born: 2005

Michal Rosiak has described the capture of a professional contract at Arsenal as a dream come true, but the journey to that signature was littered with obstacles. The young Polish midfielder, whose family relocated to London when he was 10, got chicken pox during his trial with the Premier League outfit. The youth coaches in the Gunners’ setup saw a technically gifted talent beyond the spotty rash, but when Rosiak eventually made his debut for the academy, no one had remembered to bring the team’s kit.

Wearing the spare shirts of their opponents that day, Rosiak scored twice, including a memorable belter from the halfway line. The direct free-kick specialist has enjoyed a more straightforward trajectory of late.


Career Details

Nation

Poland

Position

Midfielder

Joined Arsenal

15th May 2018

Myles Lewis-Skelly

Born: 2006

Lewis-Skelly

In the cut-throat world of Premier League youth teams, Myles Lewis-Skelly has remained unflinchingly positive. “I don’t see anything as downs,” the teenager once said. “I just see them as learning opportunities.” Targeted by scouts and sponsors since his tweens, the scholarship winner has emerged as perhaps the most high-profile youngster in Arsenal’s academy in recent months.


Under the guidance of his mother Marcia – who passed FIFA’s agent test to establish the best possible way to help her son’s development, as a player and person – Lewis-Skelly has caught the eye from the base of midfield in Arsenal’s youth team. Under-18s coach and former England international Jack Wilshere has hailed his charge as “unplayable” and gushed that Lewis-Skelly is capable of “things you can’t coach”.

Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Midfielder

Joined Arsenal

16th May 2015

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​​​​​​​Ethan Nwaneri

Born: 2007

Arsenal academy star Ethan Nwaneri clapping after Brentford game


As Ethan Nwaneri scurried around the pitch in search of his first touch in Premier League football, Arsenal’s jubilant support gleefully boasted in the away end. The Gunners were so comfortable in a 3-0 victory away to Brentford in September 2022, that Mikel Arteta could bring on a 15-year-old, shattering the record for the division’s youngest-ever player. “He’s got school in the morning,” the Arsenal faithful chanted.

Nwaneri has only made one subsequent senior appearance in the two years since his landmark debut but remains arguably the club’s best academy player. As Arsenal led West Ham 6-0 at the London Stadium in February 2024, Arteta revealed: “The players on the bench [were] whispering: ‘Bring Ethan in!'” The manager gave in to his squad’s demands and handed the teenager a 13-minute cameo. If he continues to improve at the same startling rate, the demands to see Nwaneri play may turn from whispers to shouts.


Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Midfielder

Joined Arsenal

16th May 2015

Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand

Born: 2003

Salah-Eddine Oulad M'Hand in action for Arsenal


Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand has spent the last two years desperately trying (and struggling) to live up to praise Jack Wilshere dished his way in a guarded interview with Stadium Astro. Describing the Dutch attacking midfielder as “technically very, very good”, injuries have hampered his last two loan spells.

Oulad M’Hand never got onto the pitch for Hull City during the 2022/23 campaign and initially struggled in the Dutch second tier with Den Bosch last term. But the 20-year-old proved to have some grit to go along with his abundance of guile, fighting his way into the first team before returning to Colney this summer. Shortly before jetting off on the senior pre-season tour, Oulad M’Hand shone in a friendly victory for the under-21s against Boreham Wood, finishing off a pass from his younger brother Ismail.


Career Details

Nation

Netherlands

Position

Midfielder

Joined Arsenal

1st July 2020

Jimi Gower

Born: 2004

Jimi Gower can still recall the unbridled glee he got from pulling his dad’s card out of a pack of Match Attax while growing up. The son of Mark Gower, a former midfielder who earned Premier League promotion with Brendan Rodgers’ Swansea City team, followed in his dad’s footsteps by joining the Swans and later Southend’s youth team.


It was during a friendly for the Shrimpers against Arsenal that Gower Jr caught the eye of the Gunners hierarchy. Despite getting “absolutely battered”, to use the creative midfielder’s own words, Gower impressed with a thunderous opening goal and composed overall performance. With the begrudging approval of his Tottenham-supporting father, Jimi joined Arsenal’s academy in 2017, signing his first professional contract six years later.

Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Midfielder

Joined Arsenal

28th June 2017

Charles Sagoe Jr

Born: 2004

Arsenal's Charles Sagoe Jr applauding


Charles Sagoe Jr is one of the most experienced members of Arsenal’s junior contingent. The 19-year-old started for the senior side during a triumphant League Cup tie against Brentford in September 2023 before spending the second half of last season on loan in the Championship with Swansea City.

Sagoe managed to amass a grand total of 25 minutes for the Welsh club. Following a couple of brief cameo appearances shortly after sealing his temporary stay in February 2024, Sagoe didn’t even make a matchday squad from March onwards. The right-footed left winger has returned to north London without many minutes, but with plenty of experience in a different senior setup which could prove valuable ahead of another potential loan move this season.


Career Details

Nation

England

Position

Winger

Joined Arsenal

16th July 2015

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Stats via Arsenal and Transfermarkt. Correct as of 23rd July 2024.

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