Why Arsenal stars wanted to ‘kick’ Max Dowman for what he did on the training ground

Mikel Arteta has revealed that the older Arsenal players initially wanted to “kick” Max Dowman in training after displaying his tricks.

Dowman caught the eye in pre-season with the 15-year-old getting Gunners fans particularly excited by his first appearance against AC Milan before another dazzling display saw him help Arsenal to a 3-2 win over Newcastle.

Arteta hailed that performance against Newcastle as “special” and the Arsenal boss made him the second youngest ever player in the club’s history at 15 years and 235 days when he came off the bench in August against Leeds United in the Premier League.

Dowman won a penalty against the Yorkshire side and helped the Gunners to a 5-0 win but the youngster has only played once since against Liverpool, where he came off the bench in the final moments of the match.

He was been on Arsenal Under-21 duty recently but the talented winger could now be handed the chance to be part of the first team again when they play Port Vale in the League Cup on Wednesday night.

Dowman has been in and out of training with the Arsenal senior squad since the age of 14 and there have been some moments where he’s left some of the older players with egg on their face.

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When asked how Arsenal’s older players reacted to getting nutmegged by Dowman, Arteta told a press conference: “At the beginning, they responded immediately – kick him!

“That was the first one, and Max, to be fair, he was excellent, stood up, and got to the next one.

“You can really take it personally, of someone who was 14 last year, at some point when he was doing certain things to players, and now everybody loves him. You just want to hug him, help him.

“He’s such a nice boy as well and he’s very much liked by everybody here.

“It brings responsibility to look after somebody with that talent and make sure we just do what we have to do to make sure we’re given the best chance to exploit his talent, that’s all.”

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A report on Tuesday insisted that Noni Madueke could be out for two months after being taken off at half-time as Arsenal drew 1-1 against Manchester City on Sunday.

Whena asked if their multiple injury issues are just down to bad luck, Arteta added: “We looked at everything. The one with Noni is bad luck; it’s a very unfortunate incident. With Kai, something similar. With Ben White, it was similar.

“With Martin [Odegaard], same as all the guys that have been out, very similar, because he damaged his shoulder twice during the same action on the floor, which is very unlikely to happen. With Bukayo, it was more of a muscular injury with the hamstring, maybe something to look more in depth, and we absolutely did that.

“We try to keep that as low as possible; that’s what we are trying to do.”

Arsenal were criticised for their conservative style of play against Man City with Arteta leaving players like Eberechi Eze and Gabriel Martinelli on the bench.

On whether he was surprised by the reaction to his team’s approach on Sunday, Arteta continued: “In football, surprised? I’m not surprised about anything. No, because I don’t read it [the reaction], but I do get told a little bit what the narrative is around it. If you tell me that this is the main one, if I’m surprised, I will be extremely surprised.

“With my knowledge and my know-how, and how I analyse a football game, it was impossible for anybody to predict such a dominance from Arsenal throughout 96 minutes because it never happened in 17 years of Pep [Guardiola] as a manager.

“So if the narrative goes somewhere else and we talk about dominance, about something else, how can you be dominant against such a team if you have a handbrake? Dominance and handbrake are two different words, but I accept everything. I will learn more to have a different vision.”