The Arsenal wonderkid’s masterclass that’ll have fans declaring ‘I was there’ for years to come

Arsenal’s Under-18s exited the FA Youth Cup last night after a hard-fought 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.

But this is youth football. The result will quickly be forgotten.

What will live long in the memory was the performance of 15-year-old Gunners wonderkid Max Dowman, who produced a masterclass performance that’ll have the 5000 or so spectators at The Emirates declaring ‘I was there’ for years to come.

Every so often you get a youngster so spectacularly talented that they generate buzz long before their senior debut.

That doesn’t always mean they’re necessarily destined for the very top. Think of Ravel Morrison at Manchester United, once considered to be more talented than Paul Pogba.

It wasn’t so long ago we got burned hyping up Hale Ender Charlie Patino, prematurely declared by one youth coach as “the best kid I’ve ever seen”. Fast forward a few short years and he’s struggling to make the bench in the Spanish second tier at Deportivo La Coruna.

You have to conclude the noise might not necessarily be helpful for the prodigious talents that never go on to realise their potential. Which leaves us often wrestling with the moral quandary of whether it’s right to write about lads yet to even undertake their GCSEs.

But take a quick look around and Dowman’s performance last night has made headlines at the BBC, The Athletic, London Evening Standard, Metro and plenty more. We’re a drop in the ocean.

Ultimately, dealing with expectations is part of the deal if Dowman wants to fulfil his ambition of becoming a top professional.

Arsenal have a track record of looking after their own, and you just have to hope that every wonderkid generating column inches has the right people around them to help keep their feet on the ground.

For every Morrison or Patino that never quite reach the heights expected, there are countless examples of top-level players who first caught the eye in the Youth Cup.

Decades later we’re still hearing about the Class Of ’92, or the West Ham generation of starlets that included future England stalwarts Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Rio Ferdinand.

Even in recent years gone by, you’ve got Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo at Manchester United.

Arsenal duo Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri were in attendance for the Youth Cup match and stand as shining examples of how to manage the step up to senior men’s football.

You never want to overhype a youngster, but equally it’s almost impossible to see the magic Dowman was producing and not start envisaging the brightest of futures in Mikel Arteta’s first team.

He only turned 15 on New Year’s Eve and here he is, toying with players two or three years older. The dribbling ability alone is breathtaking, and then there’s the vision.

15-year-old Max Dowman v Man Utd u18s

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“Super proud, I said to the boys after the game that football can be cruel. They’ve given absolutely everything,” Arsenal Under-18 coach Adam Birchall said after the match.

“It’s going to hurt, they’ll need the weekend maybe to get over it but then they’ve got to use that hurt on Monday and we’ll go again.’

“For such a young team, the way they dug in and the rollercoaster of the game, to still be pushing at the end to try and get something out of it really showed the personality they have, which is definitely a bedrock to go and have a career.

“Look around you!” Birchall added, of the experience of playing in front of thousands of spectators at The Emirates.

“This is a spectacular place to come and play your football. It’s where a lot of these lads will go to bed at night dreaming of playing in the end.

“When the dust settles, I know that they’ll never forget this night. But we need to make sure that this night, regardless of the score, is a springboard to go and kick on and try to build a career.”

Of all the players on Arsenal’s teamsheet, Dowman looks likeliest to break into Arteta’s first-team plans. He’s reportedly been training with the senior set-up for a while.

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“Some of the things he does in training are unbelievable,” Arteta told reporters last month.

“He is a player with a huge talent. We have a lot of belief we can develop him to become one of our own.

“At the moment, there are a lot of restrictions with his age. He is taking very fast steps. Every time we put him in another challenge, he takes great steps.”

Those restrictions mean that the Hale End starlet is unable to be fast-tracked into the first-team picture just yet.

Dowman was named in Arsenal’s Under-15s earlier in the season, which forbids him from being named in a Premier League matchday squad.

Any Arsenal fans dreaming that he’ll be the saviour of their attacking injury crisis will be left disappointed for now. There’ll be no breaking Nwaneri’s record to become the Premier League’s youngest debutant.

What’s the rush? Dowman is a joy to watch at this level and well ahead of schedule.