Ethan Nwaneri at 18: A teenage star steeped in Hale End heritage

The 2013-14 season may stand out to different Arsenal supporters for different reasons. For some, it will be remembered as the season when the club ended its eight-season trophy drought by winning the FA Cup. For others, it may be remembered as then record-signing Mesut Ozil’s debut campaign, or as the year that Aaron Ramsey dominated the Premier League.

For a young Ethan Nwaneri, however, this is when he was first acclimatising to Arsenal with the pre-academy at Hale End. This was before the site’s redevelopment, when upon walking through the gates, you were greeted by an old pavilion building and an indoor dome where countless memories were made.

This is where Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Folarin Balogun, Reiss Nelson and Joe Willock learned their craft before graduating to the senior setup at London Colney. For Greg Lincoln, head of the foundation phase at Arsenal’s academy at the time, the attention that Nwaneri paid to these names is just part of what made him stand out.

“Liam Brady always had this big thing about the kids racing into the training ground because they couldn’t wait to get there and play football with their friends,” Lincoln, now England Under-16s head coach, tells The Athletic. “Ethan was six years of age, this little dot, but he was doing things with a football that I probably still can’t do to this day.

“Ethan just loved the game. Pre-academy training would finish and other parents would all rush off. An hour later, he’d still be watching the older boys on tiptoes looking through the fence with his dad or with a ball at his feet anywhere there was a wall, kicking the ball, getting touches. He was always smiling. You could tell that he really wanted to be there.”

Lincoln is an Arsenal academy graduate himself, making it as far as the bench in the Champions League under Arsene Wenger in the late 1990s. Having come through the system, he was well placed to make the pitch to Nwaneri’s family when it was decision-time on which academy to join at under-nines level, but did not try to sell a dream.

“You can’t guarantee any young player that they’re gonna play in the first team — certainly at eight,” he adds. “What you can guarantee is that they’re gonna have unlimited opportunities, experiences; you’re gonna have fantastic resources to ultimately maximise your potential as a player and as a person.

“Ethan was in high demand. He could have gone to any academy within the catchment area that he was allowed but what he saw was a vision. He saw the other players in the system, he saw the smiles on the faces, he saw that there was a pathway.

“It’s a club that really believes deeply and passionately about youth development, and has always been built on that.”

Jack Wilshere, Nwaneri’s future under-18s head coach, personified Arsenal’s commitment to youth development when he was present as Nwaneri signed his first contract in May 2015. Just weeks later, at half-time of a 4-1 thrashing of West Bromwich Albion, Nwaneri was introduced on the pitch at the Emirates Stadium as part of that year’s new cohort of under-nines at half-time. Wilshere had just scored what was later voted Match of the Day’s goal of the season.

Nwaneri spent most of his academy days playing in midfield. His first exposure up front came with Arsenal’s under-14s and under-15s before stints in defensive midfield as an under-16. The step-up to the under-18s, under-21s and first team in the 2022-23 season brought more variation, as the north Londoner also had exposure out wide as well as in attacking midfield and up front.

“In Ethan’s case, you see where he will develop into and actually transfer his game into those pocket areas like Martin Odegaard,” said academy manager Per Mertesacker in October. “That will be his position going forward but he might have to play as a false nine or on the right wing, and (first-team manager) Mikel Arteta will use it to his strength. If you say: ‘I can just play No 10’, that will restrict you, so flexibility is key here.”

That flexibility has been especially important since Bukayo Saka’s hamstring injury in December, with Nwaneri stepping up on the right wing. Nwaneri’s early physical development has helped him fill those boots but alongside his natural proficiency, years of work had to be done within Arsenal to prepare him.

“They have an approach to physically developing players called the ‘arrow approach’,” Des Ryan, formerly Arsenal’s head of sports medicine and athletic development and now director of sport at the University of Galway in Ireland, tells The Athletic. “Ivan Gazidis was CEO when we developed this and he wanted players ready for the first team early, and now that’s happening.

“In order to do that, the first part of the arrow was functional competence, then movement skills, integrated conditioning and planned periodisation. Per Mertesacker wants the most efficient movers. The science and medicine departments have come up with programmes to develop them, and the scouts find players who have good movement. Some players have that anyway but it will be accentuated by the programme to develop that.

Ethan Nwaneri has made 29 appearances for Arsenal this season (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

“Mikel’s playing philosophy isn’t too dissimilar from Arsene Wenger’s. He wants highly technical players who are comfortable on the ball, able to play through thirds, and have high-speed repeatability.” Wherever Nwaneri played, it was all about developing him further and getting the most out of what some in youth football call ‘super strengths’.

“His have been clear to see in the Premier League and Champions League this season,” Lincoln says. “His ability to go past players, change direction and speed while still having the ball completely under control, and then his finishing — he’s just so explosive and ruthless with his finishing.

“When you’re seeing these goals flying in, it’s no coincidence. He’s hit that shot (into the top corner) 10,000 times. He’s obsessed with getting better, so our job, really, is to design practices that enhance these super strengths.

“When you try to develop players, we talk about relevance to the game and if it’s realistic to the game. Are you getting enough opportunity to repeat the skill to improve it? For example, if you play an 11-vs-11 game, he might only get two or three opportunities to do it.

“The skill of the coaches is to design practices where it’s not 11 vs 11. It may be a back four and a screening three in front against seven attacking players. Then you’re locked into the final third and by the constraints of the environment, you’re getting into those positions time and again. You might overload the attacking team to make it easier or underload them to make it harder.”

Lincoln’s role at Arsenal’s academy was to be more of an overseer. His relationship with Nwaneri became even more special when the pair reunited with England’s under-16s in 2022 before they both moved up to the under-17s in the following years.

Nwaneri had been known to England’s youth setup since he was 12, playing for Arsenal’s under-14s in a national qualifier group, which they topped. Born in 2007, he joined the 2006-born cohort of England Under-16s aged 14 as he needed a different challenge. He played six matches under Lincoln as an under-16 and seven as an under-17.

The most important matches with Lincoln in charge arguably came at last summer’s European Under-17s Championship in Cyprus. Arteta had already given Nwaneri two Premier League cameos and he was primed to go on pre-season with the first team. Having been in the previous under-17 European Championship and World Cup squads, this tournament was about bridging the gap between youth and senior football.

(Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

Nwaneri excelled, scoring three goals in four games. One of these was a trademark finish into the top corner against France, but the work went way beyond just his ‘super strengths’.

“Ethan’s a very self-driven individual,” Lincoln says. “Last summer, Ethan and I looked at elite players in the pathway that played his position that he’s maybe looking to hunt down, and at some stage, might have to try and get in front of.

“Ethan has a really good perception of the game, so we spoke about using that not only in possession but out of possession too because it can be the opportunity to win the ball back and score. He was really receptive to that and there was a good clip of Phil Foden doing it. We took it from a Man City versus Chelsea game, and Foden was doing it in minute four, 44 and 94. These clips are not highlights on Match of the Day but ultimately, they’re really important.”

The off-the-ball aspect of Nwaneri’s game was a focus with Arsenal’s under-21s last season. The team’s head coach Mehmet Ali spoke to The Athletic about the teenager developing a better understanding of when and where to apply pressure before the summer.

Gradual improvements were visible in pre-season but there have been multiple moments throughout the 2024-25 campaign where his defensive work has benefited Arsenal. The benefits of the 2024 pre-season tour to the U.S. were not just to do with football either.

During that camp, Ali identified that Nwaneri and close friend Myles Lewis-Skelly developed a “level of sharpness on the pitch, understanding where pressure is coming from and moving the ball with quality”. “They’ve matured as players off the pitch as well,” he added. “Their temperament or control of their emotions is better. They’ve got better coping strategies when things aren’t going as well and that’s all because of the environment and the players they’re around.”

That personal growth has been just as important. Nwaneri has never been the loudest player but that is not an issue. His talking tends to be done on the pitch, but an effort has still been made to bring him out of his shell. As a tangible example, he captained England’s under-19s three times across two camps this season but again, subtle work has taken place behind the scenes.

“With the (England) under-17s, we made a big thing of Ethan having been to previous tournaments,” Lincoln adds. “He was coming into this group having done it before. I had a conversation with him and his dad to say: ‘Ethan, you’re the leader. You’re leading this group now. You’ve done it. They’re looking at how you behave, so you’re driving those standards’, which he did.

“It’s important that we nudge certain personalities out of their comfort zone for the right reasons. If we were reviewing a game, Ethan might lead a group of eight to see what we did well and what we can improve on for the next game. It’s also those one-to-one conversations, and we had a lot in the summer about, ‘How can we bridge the gap? How can we push you to the next level, whether at Arsenal or with England?’.”

(Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Lincoln stresses the importance of having a genuine connection with a young player to have frank conversations. With their history, that has come quite naturally to himself and Nwaneri.

Their birthdays are two days apart, with Nwaneri’s today (March 21) and Lincoln’s on March 23, so both tend to fall within international breaks. Nwaneri scored twice against Denmark Under-17s a day after turning 16 in 2023. Last year, he scored one in a 5-1 win over Northern Ireland Under-17s the day before his 17th birthday, and then scored another against Hungary on Lincoln’s birthday.

The FA’s operations team knows when birthdays are coming up, so a plan was set out. The squad went to Nando’s on their day off, and out came the balloons and a birthday cake before a boisterous rendition of Happy Birthday.

“You can imagine teenage boys: ‘Oh come on, this is so embarrassing’, but it was great,” Lincoln recalls. “Nando’s had the Saka sauce at that time, so he held it up and we sent a photo to Bukayo.”

This year, Nwaneri is in line to celebrate his 18th birthday by making his England Under-21s debut against France tonight (kick-off 8pm GMT; 4pm ET).

It is easy to forget that Nwaneri is still so young given he was thrust into the spotlight in 2022, becoming the Premier League’s youngest player at 15. This is a teenager who is still developing in many ways.

His 29 first-team appearances and eight goals this season show why coaches throughout his journey, from Hale End to the Emirates, have put faith in him, but there should be more to come and no one knows that better than Nwaneri himself.

“He’s quite shy off the pitch but he loves the attention on it because that’s his arena — where he belongs,” Lincoln says. “Ethan’s a mentality monster. Whatever he does, he wants to be the best.”

(Top photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)