Arsenal may have just officially promoted another academy youngster to the first-team squad

The Arsenal academy is one of the best in world football.

Hale End has helped the Gunners save millions by producing the likes of Bukayo Saka, Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Max Dowman in recent years.

The latter, who is still just 16, was already a part of the first team last season, and he is expected to have a bigger role in the upcoming campaign.

Now, one of his academy mates could join him in the senior setup.

Marli Salmon may have officially been promoted to the Arsenal first team

Marli Salmon is one of Arsenal’s most exciting young players.

The 16-year-old has already made his senior debut for the Gunners, and he impressed in the few opportunities he got.

In pre-season this summer, Salmon was absolutely outstanding every time he stepped on the pitch – at times, even better than the senior defenders.

That must have caught the eye of Mikel Arteta, who may have promoted him now.

Ahead of the new Premier League season, the Arsenal first-team players were called up for an official photoshoot.

All the big names were present there, but to our surprise, Salmon was involved too and got his pictures taken ahead of the start of the new season.

That wasn’t the case last year, which suggests the youngster has officially been promoted to the first team, just like Dowman was last year.

Marli Salmon deserves first-team opportunities at Arsenal

Some of Salmon’s performances in pre-season were nothing short of remarkable.

The teenager handled players much older than him with considerable ease, and his reading of the game – with and without the ball – was marvellous.

With Ezri Konsa coming in, first-team opportunities will be hard to come by for Salmon, but he should still be given opportunities whenever possible.

We expect Salmon to play in the cup games when those competitions begin before potentially heading out on loan in January.