Arsenal have another young player who may genuinely be a bigger talent than Max Dowman

If someone stopped you on the street and asked you to name Arsenal’s brightest young talent, your answer would probably be Max Dowman.

The 16-year-old has impressed everyone almost every time he has played, and he was the star of the show in the Carabao Cup clash against Ipswich Town as well.

Dowman scored two brilliant goals and helped Arsenal win 4-2. He was the clear Man of the Match and deserves all the praise in the world.

However, in the same game, we think another Arsenal youngster proved that he may be a bigger talent.

Why Marli Salmon could be a bigger talent than Max Dowman at Arsenal

Both Max Dowman and Marli Salmon are incredible talents with a huge future in the game.

The Arsenal academy deserves enormous praise for the way they have been developing young players, and these two teenagers may just prove to be the best of the bunch.

All the talk over the last few days has been about Dowman’s brilliance, his potential, and whether he should be playing regular senior football. There have even been some shouts that Thomas Tuchel should call him up to the England squad.

Those are debates for another day, but our point here is that Salmon’s performance is going under the radar.

The 17-year-old was outstanding in central defence. He was given a tough test by Zian Flemming, but he came out of it looking really good. Salmon even completed 100 per cent of his 65 passes, which is almost unheard of for a player so young.

We see young players make their senior debuts for clubs every year, especially in the Carabao Cup, and many have impressed us over the years.

But it is extremely rare to see a 17-year-old starting a game in the heart of the defence and not looking out of place even for a second.

The likes of Virgil van Dijk and Gabriel Magalhaes were nowhere near as good as Salmon was at the age of 17 – we’re sure even they will agree with that.

Dowman is phenomenal, but we have seen exciting young attackers on several occasions over the years. A centre-back like Salmon, on the other hand, is very rare at his age, which is why we think he may well be a bigger talent than his 16-year-old teammate.