Max Dowman’s chances of playing competitive football over the next few weeks could rest on Mikel Arteta’s plans for tonight’s Champions League clash with Slavia Prague.
The 16-year-old still has two games to serve of the three-match domestic ban he received following his red card against Fleetwood Town. He is also suspended for England under-19s during the upcoming international break after being sent off in October.
There’s a strong case that Dowman was harshly treated in our League Cup tie, and that his subsequent appeal deserved a more sympathetic hearing. Even so, two red cards for similar incidents in a matter of weeks prompted some frank words from Arteta, who made clear that the teenager’s age would only afford him so much leeway.
“This is the environment and this is the reality. Otherwise, we are in Disneyland,” Arteta said last Friday.
“We are not in Disneyland. We are in the Premier League at this level.
“We look after him so much that you cannot imagine. But at the same time, we are going to make demands of him like anybody else.”
Whether the incident, which brought Arsenal’s 79-game run without a red card to an end, affects his chances of featuring tonight remains to be seen. Arteta certainly has reasons to consider him.
Bukayo Saka is sidelined, Eberechi Eze was a doubt ahead of the trip to Anfield and Christos Tzolis has only just returned from a hamstring injury. With attacking options stretched, Prague could offer Dowman a chance to put a frustrating spell behind him, at the venue where he became Arsenal’s youngest ever Champions League player last year.
Speaking on Tuesday evening, Arteta sounded ready to turn the page.
“That’s a chapter that is gone. It’s a moment of learning for all of us, and we move on. You learn from the not-so-good ones; you make sure that you learn from the great ones as well. He’s been in great spirit.
“When you see the kid, and today we spent some time together as well talking about things in training, he’s always super positive.
“When you’re 16, you have a different way of looking at things and treating things, and that’s what he brings to the team as well.”
The manager’s comments last week attracted plenty of attention, with some questioning whether a player so young needed such a public dressing-down. Arteta, though, sees those conversations as part of building a relationship in which both can speak openly. He has also given Dowman the chance to respond.
“I sit down with him and said, ‘Did you see my press conference? What did you think?’ Just honestly, like this. It’s public!
“We just have this kind of relationship. I think it’s the way it should be. If he thinks something different, he needs to tell me. That’s the relationship we try to build with our players.
“He’s in a good place. That, in the end, is going to come out as a critical point in his career where he needs to learn about something \[being kicked\] that is going to be happening a few times every game for him.
“It’s not something that’s going to happen maybe once or twice a season. Three or four times per game, probably, he’s going to have to go through this kind of moment. He needs to master that because it’s part of his game.”
It’s an unfortunate reality for a player whose ability to beat opponents will inevitably make him a target. We can hope referees offer him better protection, but there will still be occasions when he has to swallow his frustration and get on with it. That’s a lot to ask of a 16-year-old, even one already capable of holding his own at this level.
Alongside those demands, there has been plenty of support. Arteta confirmed that Dowman’s teammates had rallied around him, something he put down as much to the teenager’s character as his age.
“I think we’ve all done that because that’s the way you feel about somebody, not because he had any guilt or anything. It’s because it’s something human.
“When somebody is sad or feels vulnerable in a moment, what you do is you’re there to help him, and all the players are extremely conscious of that, and not only for his age. It’s for the way Max is and the way he treats people.
“You just want to look after that kind of people, and the team has been very close to him.”
Mikel Merino, who also faced the media in Prague, offered some insight into how that support has looked on the training ground. At 30, the World Cup winner is among the squad’s more experienced heads, and he has been encouraged by Dowman’s response to a difficult week.
On supporting Max, he said: “I think everyone, we try to do that every single time. We know this squad and this club is like a family; when things are going great, you congratulate him. When things are not as good, you have to put an arm around him.
“The good thing about it is that everyone is very close to each other, and he is the first one who is always keen to learn and to keep his head up. This week has been, to be honest, very good for him in terms of training. I’ve seen him training very well, and he’s always with his eyes and ears open, keen to learn.
As a veteran, in this case, I always try to help him in every aspect I can. We are very proud of him of what he’s achieving at such a young age, and he needs to keep learning, keep improving, and he knows that, and he will be a massive player in the future.”
For all the scrutiny of his reactions and the debate over how Arteta should handle him, Merino’s final observation was a useful reminder of the person at the centre of it all.
He added: “He’s just a kid; he’s 16 years old. He’s a super nice guy, shy; he doesn’t want to bother anyone. He’s just there to play football, enjoy and have fun.”
Hopefully, he gets the chance to do exactly that tonight. After a week spent discussing his reactions to being kicked, it would be nice to have something to say about what he can do with the ball.