7 Arsenal academy graduates we can’t believe are currently without a club

The Hale End academy has produced some stunning players over the years, and the present Arsenal side has benefited greatly from it.

Unfortunately, not every player can reach the level of Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly. Some now find themselves without a club due to several factors that include injury, form or something else entirely.

We’ve decided to take a closer look at seven former Arsenal academy players who now find themselves as a free agent.

Benik Afobe 

Now 32, Afobe’s last club was Al-Mesaimeer in the Qatari division and he currently finds himself without a club.

Afobe was a well-known name and was tipped to be a future star having come through England’s youth setup and featuring in the U16, U17, U19 and U21 sides.

However, it didn’t quite pan out as expected, but he went on to net the majority of his goals in the Championship with 57 in 217 games while also boasting 10 in 63 in the Premier League.

He struggled to translate his form from the EFL into the top-flight and now finds himself awaiting the next step of his career, having featured for 12 clubs, including the DR Congo, to date.

Gilles Sunu 

It is unclear if Sunu is retired, given that he hasn’t featured anywhere since 2023.

His last club were LB Châteauroux but he has previously featured for Arsenal, Derby County, Lorient, Evian, and Angers.

His initial early burst for Arsenal’s reserve side had garnered some attention and made his full first team debut in the 2009-10 season in both the League Cup and Champions League.

He then spent the entirety of his Arsenal senior career on loan at Derby, Lorient and Lorient B. In 2010, he did manage to net in the UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship.

But a knee injury came shortly after and disrupted his progress.

Jay Emmanuel-Thomas 

One of the more shocking outcomes on this list is Emmanuel-Thomas.

In the academy, he was highly rated and even captained Arsenal to FA Youth Cup glory in 2009, playing in a side that included Jack Wilshere, Francis Coquelin, and Sanchez Watt.

Loan spells at Cardiff City, Doncaster Rovers, Blackpool, and Ipswich Town shortly after resulted in a move to Ipswich, but he then drifted afterwards.

After leaving Arsenal, he played for more than a dozen clubs across five countries.

Two months after signing for Greenock Morton, he was charged with planning the importation of £600,000 worth of cannabis from Bangkok to the UK.

The now 34-year-old was then taken into custody from his home in Gourock, near Glasgow and was remanded in custody after being denied bail.

His contract with Morton was immediately terminated and he is awaiting a trial in May that will last seven days.

Luke Freeman 

After becoming the youngest player ever to feature in the FA Cup, big things were expected from Freeman.

He signed for Arsenal a year later, where he played in the youth setup. Shockingly, he never made a first-team appearance for the Gunners despite four years on their books.

He spent his time featuring in the reserves as well as being on loan in the EFL, but he went on to make over 100 appearances for three clubs: Stevenage, Bristol City and Queens Park Rangers.

His last club was Barnet and the now 33-year-old has been out of contract since last summer.

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Andre Blackman 

In his youth days, Blackman first featured at Arsenal before moving to Tottenham and then Portsmouth – but he also had spells at Chelsea and West Ham United.

Highly rated in his youth days, the defender went on to play for 14 clubs in 14 years, including Celtic, Blackpool and AFC Wimbledon.

His last club was Dulwich Hamlet in 2023, in the National League South, but he made the headlines in late 2024 for the wrong reasons.

He was charged over a street brawl involving three men in which a football agent’s jaw was broken, and Blackman was accused of causing grievous bodily harm.

Adebayo Fapetu 

Despite only being 20, Fapetu left Arsenal in 2021 as a young player. He then joined Derby County on a scholarship and went on to star in the U18 Premier League as well as Derby’s under-21 side.

Ahead of the 2023-24 season, he signed a professional deal with Derby.

After enjoying some minutes in the first team, he then opted to not agree a new deal with the club and chose to leave.

The left-back has been out of action since 2024 with no club and will be waiting until the summer to find a new club.

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Zach Fagan

Originally coming through Arsenal’s reserves, Fagan competed in the lower leagues for Braintree and Welling, but his last recorded club was FC Romania in the 2021-22 campaign.

He spent 12 years with Arsenal in total, going from an eight-year-triallist to youth player, to the under-21s.

At the time, he played alongside Hector Bellerin and was compared to Rio Ferdinand and Eric Abidal by the club’s in-house magazine.

In an interview in 2016, he said, “Everyone’s got to think they’re going to be the one – that’s the only way it works. But it doesn’t work like that. It can be a harsh environment.”

Nowadays, he can be seen modelling and has forged a career outside of football.