Mikel Arteta praised Myles Lewis-Skelly after the teenager impressed in midfield during Arsenal’s 3-0 Premier League win over Fulham.
Mikel Arteta said Myles Lewis-Skelly “fully deserves” his chance after the teenager impressed in midfield during Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Fulham.
Lewis-Skelly’s inclusion was one of the most notable features of Arsenal’s starting XI at the Emirates Stadium. The 18-year-old has already broken through this season, but this was a different test, with Arteta using him in midfield rather than in his more familiar left-back role.
It was a significant call from the Arsenal manager, particularly in a game that carried importance in both the Premier League title race and the build-up to Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid. Arsenal responded with one of their strongest home performances of the season, and Arteta made clear afterwards that Lewis-Skelly had justified his selection.
“He fully deserves it,” Arteta said in his post-match press conference. “I’ve been tough on him. He had a spectacular season last year when he jumped into the first team. He had some difficult moments after that, but he stayed very humble, very focused, very aligned with what we wanted to do, and I knew he was ready.
“He’s been showing in training every day the opportunities that he had to play. He’s done it and today he really stepped up and I thought he had an incredible performance.”
That was a strong endorsement from Arteta, who has consistently shown he will trust young players when he believes they are ready. In Lewis-Skelly’s case, though, this was not simply a matter of giving him minutes. It was a positional decision that changed the shape of Arsenal’s midfield and asked the teenager to handle a new responsibility in a high-pressure moment of the season.
Arteta admitted it was not a straightforward choice, and even joked that he may have waited too long to try it.
“Because probably I don’t have a clue and maybe I should have done it earlier, I don’t know,” he said when asked why Lewis-Skelly had not been used there sooner.
“But I have to do things when I believe that the player is ready, the team is ready and the opponent is the right one to play with him in that position. We’ve done it today, it’s the first time. It was a big risk because I knew what was going to happen, if he wasn’t this great, we would have lost the game.
“How do you play a kid at this age, in this scenario, in a position that he hasn’t played all season? I knew that but I had the feeling that it was the right game for him.”
Arsenal’s overall performance helped make that gamble look an inspired one. The hosts played with more freshness and fluency than they had shown in Madrid in midweek, and Arteta suggested those “fresh legs” played an important role in how the team functioned.
For Lewis-Skelly, it was another important step in a breakthrough season. For Arteta, it was evidence that his faith in the teenager was well placed. And with Arsenal now preparing for one of the biggest nights in the Emirates era against Atletico, the display offered another option at exactly the right time.