I was top goalscorer in Arsenal pre-season – I couldn't understand why I got no chances
The Arsenal youngster only made a handful of senior appearances(Image: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Former Arsenal striker Chuba Akpom scored against his old employers on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup. Things could have been very different for the striker, though, only for his path to the Gunners' first team to be blocked despite him impressing in friendlies under Arsene Wenger.
This weekend, Arsenal take on another of Akpom's former clubs in the form of Brighton & Hove Albion. However, after his loan on the south coast – a fifth domestic move without moving any closer to Wenger's starting XI – he felt compelled to kick-start his career overseas.
In the summer of 2013, the Newham-born frontman bagged four goals in pre-season. A handful of loans followed, with limited opportunities coming his way at Brentford, Coventry or Nottingham Forest, before he returned and top-scored in pre-season ahead of the 2015/16 campaign thanks to a hat-trick against a Singapore XI.
"I pushed for a loan as soon as I turned 18," Akpom told The Independent in 2018. "It can be tough [on loan]. You might not be in the squad, might not start, there’s a lot of things that make that little bit of doubt creep in.
"Especially when you’re thinking like Arsenal are looking and I’m not playing. It looks bad, but I saw people my age playing and I thought I want to be as well. I don’t want to be in the reserves, I want a challenge. That’s just who I am.
"At Arsenal, it was frustrating. Just thinking why am I not playing? Why am I not getting opportunities? I think I did well when I had the chances, I was top goalscorer in preseason, and I think I did well when I played in the cups.
"Sometimes, that’s just how it is. Maybe my path is different from other players, but I’ve never had any regrets… but I didn’t really get a real opportunity [at Arsenal] in my opinion."
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Akpom scored a hat-trick for Arsenal in a pre-season game against a Singapore XI(Image: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Those opportunities might have been hard to come by at Arsenal - he played just 12 times for the first team - but a move abroad helped him get the games and goals he needed. Akpom's final loan move away from the Emirates Stadium saw him score six times in 16 games for Belgian side Sint-Truiden and he followed that up with 18 across two seasons in Greece with PAOK.
A return to England eventually arrived and, after an inauspicious start, he enjoyed the best scoring season of his career by some distance. Michael Carrick's mid-season arrival at Middlesbrough helped, with Akpom racking up 28 Championship goals - seven more than any other player - to secure a play-off finish.
Soon he was on the move again, though, with Ajax offering European football and Akpom scoring 15 times in all competitions in his first season - three of those goals coming in the Europa League. He scored four in Europe in his second Ajax season and even enjoyed a taste of Champions League action during a loan spell at Lille, more than a decade after Wenger first named him on the Arsenal bench for a match in the competition.
Akpom scored for Ipswich against Arsenal in this season's Carabao Cup(Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)
In the summer of 2025, months before his 30th birthday, the striker decided it was time to return home again. He spent a year on loan at Portman Road as Ipswich won promotion and has already matched his first-season tally of two goals this term after making the move permanent.
"I have had lots of good experiences over the last few years, at Ajax and playing in the Champions League with Lille, and I feel like all of these have improved me as a player and helped me be the person I am now," he said after joining the Tractor Boys. "I’m here to do as much as I can do to help the team, in the changing room and on the pitch, and I’ll bring a winning mentality here."
Arsenal might have come on leaps and bounds in the near-decade since Akpom's exit but he has carved his own path in the meantime. We'll never know how differently things might have turned out had he been given that chance at the Emirates Stadium.
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