Arsenal could never hope to retain all their best and brightest. Even players who go on to find starring roles later in their career might not have been cut out for football at the Emirates Stadium.
But still, there are those that got away, that Arsenal was desperate to keep but couldn’t quite retain. Yunus Musah is one of them, a player who was rated among the best in his age group at Hale End and could well have been on the path to the first team.
Now he is on that same road at Valencia, the club he rejected Arsenal for last summer, and he is making swift progress. Their return to pre-season training saw Musah called up to train with Javi Gracia’s first team, who have a pressing need for numbers in midfield with club captain Dani Parejo and Francis Coquelin set to depart for Villarreal.
Officially Musah has not made the step up to the Valencia senior set up but he was one of just six members of the Mestalla B team to join Gracia’s sessions. His star is on the rise.
There are still the likes of Geoffrey Kondogbia and Daniel Wass to overhaul, though the former could follow Parejo and Coquelin out of the club, there is an avenue to the first team opening up for Musah. That and the lure of senior football at an early age were what convinced the then 16-year-old that his future lay in Spain not north London.
Arsenal was desperate to tie Musah, a dynamic midfielder who could make telling contributions at each end of the pitch, to his first professional terms last summer. However, there were numerous young players rivalling him for a role in the Gunners’ future plans, including Miguel Azeez, Emile Smith Rowe and Joe Willock.
Aside from that Musah might have required some convincing that Arsenal would genuinely commit to giving their youngsters a chance. After all his departure to Valencia came at the end of the 2018/19 season when Unai Emery had blocked loan moves for Willock and Eddie Nketiah only to leave them on the fringes of the first team.
Last season was a good start for Musah, who made 17 appearances for Valencia Mestalla in the Spanish Segunda Division and winning his first caps with England’s Under-18 side. He also caught the eye of former head coach Marcelino, who pronounced himself very impressed with what he saw of the young midfielder.
Describing his playing style last year, Musah said: “I’m a passer and also physical, I can run past players because I’m a bit bigger than some of them. I’m really good at passing, I can create a lot of chances and this season I’ve been trying to improve my scoring rate.
“I want to score more goals and be more consistent with my passes as well. Sometimes in the game, I can do so many good passes and one bad one, I want to correct that.”
