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On 22 November, 2008, Gavin Hoyte started in central defence for Arsenal away at Manchester City. William Gallas had been disciplined for comments in the media, stripped of the captaincy and dropped for the trip to Manchester. 18-year-old Hoyte started in his stead. His brother Justin made his first Premier League start for Arsenal in similar circumstances.
Pascal Cygan was injured in the warm-up at Carrow Road in August 2004 and Hoyte was parachuted into the starting line-up. The junior of the brothers, Gavin, endured a torrid time at Eastlands. It was one of the select games where Robinho could be bothered to turn up and he turned Hoyte inside out as City won 3-0.
Gavin, now 34, has since played for Dagenham & Redbridge (twice), Gillingham, Barnet, Eastleigh and Maidstone United. He transferred to Folkestone Invicta this summer. The point of this column is not to lampoon Gavin Hoyte, but to point out that he is in the top 1-2% of Arsenal academy graduates because he started a Premier League game for Arsenal. He was a success and nobody will ever be able to take that away from him, not even Robinho.
The vast majority of Arsenal academy graduates barely make it in the Football League, let alone the Premier League, let alone Arsenal. So what of a player, a striker no less, who plays 168 games for the club, scoring 38 goals? That makes Eddie Nketiah one of the most successful Arsenal academy graduates of all time. The quantative data is impressive but, as is always the case with numbers, it only provides a snapshot.
Nketiah’s Arsenal career has not been laid before him. His career has not been comfortable or without trials and tribulations. He has had to be patient, work hard and circumnavigate odds that were often stacked against him. Lest we forget that he came to Arsenal as a 14-year-old because he was released by Chelsea (a fate also suffered by his contemporary and friend Declan Rice).
Nketiah burst onto the scene in late 2017 as an 18-year-old with a pair…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/08/eddie-nketiah-a-tribute/
Author : Tim Stillman
Publish date : 2024-08-29 12:00:38
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