Nwaneri beware: Five Arsenal teenage ‘superstars’ who never made the grade

Nicolas Anelka, Ashley Cole, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Bukayo Saka, and now Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri…Arsenal have a particularly proud history when it comes to introducing teenage stars to Premier League football.

But not all of the kids Arsenal have tried to blood into first-team regulars have quite been able to follow that path quite so successfully…

Jeremie Aliadiere
Just 18 years old when he made his debut, replacing Thierry Henry as Arsenal romped to a league and cup double, Arsenal had high hopes for the young French centre-forward.

But despite being given eight years at Arsenal and earing a winner’s medal as part of the Invincibles, Aliadiere never really made the grade at Highbury – or indeed at the Emirates Stadium.

The new stadium’s inaugural season, 2006/07, was Aliadiere’s last for the club; he departed for Middlesbrough having scored 9 goals in 51 appearances for Arsenal, with all but one of those goals coming in the FA Cup or League Cup. He went on to do well with French side Lorient, where he finished his career following a spell in Qatar.

He’s also a ‘mad fan’ of Darwin Nunez, which might explain a lot.

Fran Merida
Gunners fans had good reason to be excited about Merida; the 15-year-old midfielder was controversially swiped from Barcelona’s academy in 2005, just a couple of years after Arsenal had done the same with Cesc Fabregas – now already a key player aged just 18.

Merida had to wait until he was 17 to make his first-team debut, but was then farmed out to Real Sociedad on loan. Still, he looked promising, and Arsene Wenger declared upon signing him up to a new long-term contract: “The reports I have from Spain are that he does well every time he plays. Fran is very technical. He still needs to grow physically but football-wise there is no problem. He is an absolutely amazing player.”

Merida’s opportunities remained limited for another two seasons, but Wenger remained an outspoken fan of Merida’s and wanted him on another new deal. But then Atletico Madrid made their interest known in 2010 – much to Wenger’s disgust – and the offer of more regular football proved too tempting for Merida to turn down.

Probably for the best in the end for Arsenal, though, as Merida spent the rest of his career bouncing in and out of the Spanish second tier.

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Carlos Vela
The most successful player on this list by some distance…just never really at Arsenal, despite constant talk that it was just around the corner.

Football Manager 2007 legend Vela made the move from Mexico as a 16-year-old in 2005, though he had to go out on loan to Spain while he awaited his English work permit. Vela made a brilliant first impression after becoming eligible to play in 2008, bagging a spectacular hat-trick in a League Cup victory over Sheffield United. Further goals in the FA Cup and Premier League that season suggested Arsenal had a potential star on their hands.

A brief but positive loan spell at West Brom followed, then another loan move to Real Sociedad, which went extremely well….too well, in fact, as Vela didn’t want to leave and instructed his agent to sort out a permanent move. That went ahead, and Vela had six more happy years in San Sebastian before going on to a brilliant MLS spell with Los Angeles FC.

Emmanuel Frimpong
A highly-rated winger in Arsenal’s academy, the future one-time Ghanaian international managed to get through the considerable setback of suffering an ACL injury as an 18-year-old and made his first-team debut just a couple of months after completing his recovery in the summer of 2011.

That debut season did not go happily for Frimpong, despite his emergence as one of Wenger’s increasingly maligned pet projects. Frimpong was sent off on his first start against Liverpool, then clashed with former teammate Samir Nasri following a League Cup exit at the hands of Manchester City, before being sent out on loan to Wolves midway through the campaign.

And that was basically it for Frimpong’s Arsenal career. He played just twice more in the League Cup in 2012/13 before going back out on loan to Charlton and then Fulham, before joining Barnsley permanently in January 2014. Frimpong was once again sent off on his first start for the Tykes, left them just four months later, and never returned to England, spending the rest of his career in Russia, Sweden and Cyprus.

Gedion Zelalem
Plucked from the USA as a 16-year-old in 2013, Zelalem attracted headlines as the next big thing off the Arsenal production line after being accelerated into the under-21s and starring in a summer tour of Asia.

Funnily enough, it turns out that doing well against an Indonesia XI and the Vietnam national team is not a brilliant predictor of future success. Zelalem never played a Premier League game, making just four appearances across the FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League and spending time out on loan at Rangers and VVV Venlo.

Now 28, Zelalem has spent his career kicking around the USA and the Dutch second tier, and is now with American Championship side New Mexico United.