I wanted to be Arsenal's version of Kevin de Bruyne - now I'm a free agent at 26placeholder image
I wanted to be Arsenal's version of Kevin de Bruyne - now I'm a free agent at 26 | Arsenal FC via Getty Images
At just 26, a former Arsenal & Brentford player may be the most talented free agent in Britain - but what happened, and where will he go next?
The final day of June is a painful day for many in professional football – the day on which expiring contracts run down and popular and often long-tenured players go from club stalwarts to free agents. Few farewells will have been as difficult as one that took place at Brentford, however.
Josh Dasilva had been with the Bees for seven years and had created many lasting memories along the way – from a quite brilliant first senior goal from 30 yards against Millwall in 2019 to a strike against Leicester City on the opening day of the 2022/23 Premier League campaign which Thomas Frank described later as his “moment of the season.”
But for all that he had achieved at the club, the former England Under-21 international was still let go at the age of just 26. Now, he’s searching for a new side and a way to continue a career that Dasilva himself once saw heading down the same path as Kevin de Bruyne or Yaya Touré. So how did we get here, and what comes next?
What happened to Brentford’s Josh Dasilva?
Originally a striker, the Ilford-born Dasilva joined Arsenal’s youth academy at the age of just eight and would stay with the club for the next 12 years – and while he eventually moved on to then second-tier Brentford, the Gunners had tried to persuade him to stay.
Dasilva would later tell Brentford’s club website that it had been an “incredibly hard decision” to leave Arsenal, but one that he made for his career as he struggled to see a way into their first team – but he still shared memories of being coached by Thierry Henry and picking up pearls of wisdom from Arsène Wenger on the numerous occasions he trained with the senior team.
As a youngster, he may at first have been doing his best to emulate Henry’s excellence but having been moved into midfield at the age of 16, he started to look for other players whose footsteps he could follow in – ranging from Kevin de Bruyne to Yaya Touré.
“KDB is one I look at because he’s got everything,” he said in the same interview. “I take a bit from anyone that's doing well from the top teams.”
Whatever hints he picked up from watching De Bruyne and his ilk, it worked. Dasilva became a powerful but technically sound box-to-box midfielder who was equally comfortable drifting into the channels to attack the opposing penalty area as he was busting a lung to get back to help his defence.
By the time he left Arsenal, he had made just three senior appearances – all in the EFL Cup – but he didn’t take long to establish himself in the Championship, going on to score 22 goals in 157 appearances for the Bees and earning 17 caps for England at age-group level.
Of course, 157 games isn’t all that many for a seven-year association, and that’s where the injuries start to crop up – and it’s fitness that explains why Dasilva has been left to find a new team after so long at the Brentford Community Stadium.
What comes next for the former Arsenal youngster?
Dasilva’s career had been going smoothly prior 2021, when a serious hip injury sidelined him for nearly an entire year.
“My hip bone was swollen,” he would later explain. “I took a shot in training and, because it was swollen, the bones banged together and I felt something... We went to see a few specialists and they just said: ‘If you don't stop then you could shatter your hip and your career’s done.’”
Still, he made it back in time for the 2022/23 campaign and emerged unscathed. The hip wasn’t a problem any more and it seemed like it would be no more than a setback on an otherwise straightforward road. Unfortunately, some players never get much luck.
A hamstring injury at the very start of the 2023/24 campaign was followed by an ankle issue which Dasilva sustained almost as soon as he returned to training. Then, having played just twice after five months on the sidelines, he ruptured the ligaments in his knee. He hasn’t been back on a football field since.
Nearly 600 days have passed since Dasilva underwent knee surgery. Brentford, to their immense credit, gave Dasilva a year’s contract extension in 2024 in the hope that he could get fit and return to the first team, but that idea was finally abandoned this summer and the now 26-year-old midfielder has been released.
Dasilva has been allowed to use Brentford’s training facilities as he works to build his way back up to match fitness, but it’s not clear what point he is at on that journey as he hasn’t been active on social media for nearly a year and hasn’t provided any more recent interviews.
There have been rumours connecting him with a move to Championship clubs including Frank Lampard’s Coventry City, but those stories remain unverified and seem to lack strong sources – and it may still be some time before Dasilva is able to prove his fitness and persuade a team to take a chance on his talent.
There’s no lack of talent there, of course, and he was a key player for Brentford in the Premier League when he was fit and ready to start. Perhaps he’ll be just as important to another team soon – but so much will depend on a knee that hasn’t let him play for the better part of two years.
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