Three Takeaways from Arsenal 2-3 Villarreal

Max Dowman is destined to be Arsenal’s wrecking ball as football returned to the Emirates on Tuesday night, even if the Gunners fluffed their lines - albeit in a friendly

Three Takeways from Arsenal 2-3 Villarreal

Max Dowman is destined to be Arsenal’s wrecking ball as football returned to the Emirates, even if the Gunners fluffed their lines - albeit in a friendly

Max Dowman: Arsenal’s wrecking ball

1 - It’s Only A Friendly

For those cretins who exist to whip up fake hysteria in order to cash in on algorithms that amplify toxicity for cash, or those simpletons who live to relentlessly spit bile on social media because they truly have no other life, Arsenal’s Tuesday defeat would have pleased them immensely.

For the rest of us, those who prefer to consume sport with a knowing look, that says "‘hey, you can’t win them all” - alas a number which seems to be shrinking by the week, as frothing, frenzied hysteria strives to take over the world - then the 3-2 loss to a talented Spanish side that will play in this season’s Champions League, should be immediately shrugged off. After, of course, acknowledging the quality of the side that won a major European trophy as recently as 2021.

Attending Gunners boss Mikel Arteta’s post-match press conference in the Emirates media room, only underlined the fact. The Basque confirming that next week will be all about gearing up for the not inconsiderable challenge of taking on a previously moribund Manchester United side at Old Trafford to start the 2025-26 Premier League season for both clubs.

Arteta also confirming there will be no behind closed doors games after hosting the Basques of Bilbao in the Emirates Cup on Saturday, saying: “The week towards Manchester United will be preparation…”

A full week to further implant tactics to the six new boys on the manicured lawns of the club’s training HQ, London Colney, while further integrating precocious teenage talent Max Dowman (fifteen and three quarters) is a tad more important than winning an early August kick-about I would hasten to venture…but then that doesn’t grab those pesky algorithms, does it…?

2 - Max Dowman is going to be Arsenal’s wrecking ball

A claim to fame I will most probably bore people endlessly across my dotage is being one of the first people to watch Max Dowman play for Arsenal at the Emirates. It was for Arsenal U18s against Manchester United U18s in the quarter-final of the FA Youth Cup, last spring.

By then of course, every Gooner worth his or her salt - and a large number who aren’t, could claim they’d also heard about young Max. At that stage I’d also seen him turn out for the Arsenal U21s earlier in the season, as well featuring in the UEFA Youth League.

However, to be at the Emirates that chilly night five months ago was to witness the flowering of a special talent.

While the gifted Young Guns ultimately lost 3-2 in a cracking game of free-flowing football, as both teenage sides went toe-to-toe for 120 enthralling minutes on a surprisingly cold March evening in Islington, Dowman’s performance was superb.

His powerful running on and off the ball, allied with an all-too evident extra strength at that level, along with an excellent technique, vision, creativity and ceaseless will to win, marked him out as a genuine first team prospect, even at that tender stage.

While it would be unfair to say Dowman was a bull in a china shop that evening, his remorseless tormenting of the United backline made him more like a bull in search of a china shop.

Fast forward half a year, and one Asia tour to boot, Dowman is continuing to flourish, all the while adding vital first team experience to his armoury.

Against Villarreal - a team that finished fourth in one of the world’s strongest and most talented leagues - in another first team cameo Dowman created havoc after coming on midway through the second half, winning the penalty that Martin Odegaard calmly sent keeper Luis Junior the wrong way.

It was instructive to listen intently to Arteta speak about Dowman after the match from my vantage point ten rows up in the media room.

When quizzed if Dowman will feature in the first team when the season starts a virtually incredulous Arteta said emphatically: “If he continues to impress, then without a doubt…incredible…he deserves to have chances like this…”

I don’t want to get too excited, nor do I want to write gushingly about a teenage football who is still only 15 for heavens sake - not least because I’ve seen so many exciting prospects at 16, who weren’t even playing progressional football at 18, destined for the rest of their lives to look back in anger, or bitterness, or regret, or remorse, at wasting their first - and mostly only - chance at making the big time. And to many failed apprentices who think like that, the glory, the fame and the riches that came with it.

It’s not so much about talent at this stage, more a steady hand on the tiller, a calm temperament, a desire to keep on improving, to keep pushing and working hard - despite all the temptations that whirl around all promising academy lads, from money, to sex, to booze, to gambling, to drugs - and that’s without mentioning the vagaries of form, fitness, and avoiding injury, all the while navigating your quite challenging teenage years, then, and only then, can we safely say Dowman will be, in the words of Arteta “incredible.”

Only then we can call him Arsenal’s wrecking ball.

Even if, I must say, it’s wonderful fun to watch him play right now.

In the immortal lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball,

I’ve seen champions come and go

So if you’ve got the guts mister

Yeah, if you got the balls

If you think it’s your time

Then step to the line

And bring on your wrecking ball

Here’s to more of young Max against Bilbao in the Emirates Cup on Saturday.

………

3 - Viktor’s Glorious Evolution

Viktor Gyokeres made his first appearance in red and white at the Emirates on Tuesday, and while he failed to score he did enough to impress as the match wore on.

Yes, he looked understandably nervous at the start of his home debut. Yes, he lacked a little finesse in the early stages, and yes, to those grotesque internet caricatures who hurl online abuse at those players who don’t immediately turn into Leo Messi, he failed to score.

But nonetheless it was a promising debut.

As the first half progressed, so did Viktor’s confidence, as he hustled and bustled against the Yellow Submarines backline, driving deep, before pulling on his shooting boots to test Junior in the Villarreal goal.

I covered the 2023 Championship play-off final at Wembley, in one of the most dramatic matches I’ve had the fortune to report on, that saw Luton Town eventually eclipse Coventry City in a game for football romantics, even if the ending was painful for Gyokeres’ City.

There was a certain poignancy, not to mention bathos that one team had to lose, in the knowledge the two clubs had greatly suffered over the years, leaving both to be considered underdogs, as they strove valiantly in a bid to join the riches of the promised land after decades of toil.

It was fair to say Gyokeres played his unstinting part in Coventry’s efforts. I still recall the Swede grabbing an assist after he ran into space down Wembley’s left flank, before holding the ball up with strength and intelligence, prior to playing it into the path of Gustavo Hamer, who curled the ball into the net, finding the bottom-right corner in the process.

I also recall a rasping low Gyokeres drive that tested Horvath in the Luton goal, at his near post at the start of extra time. Alas, it wasn’t to be, and Coventry and Gyokeres fell to the pain of penalties. But his performance that day convinced me Arsenal were right to track the striker, before eventually bringing him to North London.

And while he failed to impress when I covered Arsenal’s remarkable 5-1 Champions League victory in Lisbon last November, Gyokeres had only weeks previously hit a treble against Manchester City, so we know he has pedigree at that level.

Viktor is going to score goals for Arsenal, I’m convinced of it.

He just needs time to settle.

So don’t listen to the outside noise that will start to condemn him if he doesn’t grab early goals at Old Trafford and Anfield, let alone against Bilbao on Saturday, and let’s just enjoy his continued glorious evolution into a top quality striker.