Arsenal academy pre-season review: Salmon and Julienne amongst biggest winners

A somewhat strange and truncated pre-season has come to an end for the Arsenal first-team, with the World Cup heavily impacting the amount of senior players who were available.

As a result, a large crop of academy players were involved at various stages, with some taking their opportunity in impressive style.

Max Dowman was already established in the first-team squad prior to this summer and he now appears to have been joined in that regard by Marli Salmon.

Salmon doesn’t turn 17 until later this month yet carries the aura of a defender who is significantly older and more experienced.

Some of Salmon’s performances during pre-season were of a very high standard, especially during the two games played at Emirates Stadium against Borussia Dortmund and Como.

It was also notable that, despite his ability to play at right-back and the first-team’s lack of options there, Salmon was used exclusively at centre-back during pre-season – although he did play on either side of the central defensive partnership at times.

What will be interesting now is whether Salmon will be trusted to feature in the Premier League if required.

With Salmon already somewhat well known, Theo Julienne was probably the breakout star of pre-season with regards to academy players.

Julienne remained with the first-team throughout the whole pre-season programme and will now be targeting a competitive debut at some stage this campaign, especially given that he can play in midfield as well as at right-back.

Josh Ogunnaike trained with the first-team on many occasions last season and has now gained playing time with them after signing professional terms.

Like Julienne he will hope to feature competitively as the campaign progresses.

Another academy player who stood out was Ife Ibrahim, with the defensive midfielder building upon his competitive debut against Kairat by producing some very encouraging cameos in which he played some neat passes and looked very much like a senior player.

Ceadach O’Neill, fresh from making his senior international debut for Northern Ireland, showed some impressive signs and earned praise from Mikel Arteta while he also scored in the behind-closed-doors friendly against MK Dons.

Versatile forward Andre Harriman-Annous captained the team in the second half against MK Dons and also featured later in pre-season, with defender Brayden Clarke also gaining recognition in senior football.

Winger Ismeal Kabia got some playing time but is now at the stage where a decision needs to be made about his future.

Demiane Agustien provided an assist against MK Dons and goalkeeper Khari Ranson travelled with the first-team squad to Spain and Ireland.

Marcell Washington and Evan Mooney also featured against MK Dons – their first experience of senior football at Arsenal.

The only real negative of pre-season from an academy perspective was the unfortunate injury suffered by Louie Copley, who is set to miss the majority of the season with a ruptured ACL that he suffered during the game against Real Betis.

Copley, who is normally a midfielder, had filled in admirably at right-back after returning from his loan spell at Crawley Town.

Most of these players will now return to the U21s, although some could potentially be earmarked for loan moves.

Overall it was certainly a beneficial pre-season as far as the involvement of academy players was concerned.