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Morning all.
According to ESPN, Arsenal are set to sign 16 year old Ecuadorian twins Edwin and Holger Quintero. Both are at Independiente del Valle right now, the club who once had Piero Hincapie and Moises Caicedo on their books.
The report states that the Quintero family have been in London this week to finalise an agreement which would see both move to Arsenal when they turn 18 in August 2027. Holger plays as an attacking midfielder while Edwin plays on the right wing and both have represented Ecuador at under-17 level.
Another player set to join Arsenal in 2027 is Victor Ozhianvuna who was signed earlier in the year from Shamrock Rovers but he should arrive in the January.
I think it’s great that Arsenal are looking out for the academy and let’s be honest, if we don’t snap up these bright young stars, other clubs will. Chelsea for one. The better our academy is, the better our first team might be in years to come. There’s no guarantee all three above will be Arsenal super stars in the future but it’s a cheap risk worth taking in my opinion. Plus, it’s not like it used to be when we signed youngsters but very few good first team players. Not many of those youngsters went onto to play for the first team on a regular basis, Anelka, Fabregas and Walcott being just three of the exceptions.
Back to the first team though and as far as our attacking players go, things are looking up. Madueke and Martinelli have now featured in two fixtures each, Odegaard had a brief return in the week before a second runout against Chelsea and in addition to them, Jesus was on the bench at the weekend too. Hopefully, Trossard will be back in contention for tomorrow’s match against Brentford. However, nothing seems to well for Arsenal all at once as just as our attacking players return, our defence has been struck by the injury curse with both Saliba and Gabriel out of the side so there’s a good chance both Hincapi and Mosquera will be paired together again tomorrow night. The more they play together, the better the partnership should become.
The officials for tomorrow’s game are: Tony Harrington is the man with the whistle while Steve Meredith and Sian Massey-Ellis are his assistants. Sam Allison is the fourth official, with James Bell on VAR and Blake Antrobus as the assistant VAR. Must be honest, only Sian Massey-Ellis is a familiar name to me. Harrington was born in Yorkshire and has only officiated one Arsenal game, a 3-1 victory over Southampton however, he has officiated Brentford on many occasions back when they were a Championship club. Harrington would have to be one of the worst referees in the world to be as bad as Taylor was on Sunday.
Brentford won’t make things easy for us tomorrow, why would or should they but I can’t see them being as “dirty” as Chelsea. Disruptive I’m sure but hopefully there will be no potential bone breaking challenges from either side.
Catch up in the comments.