Omar Rekik has terminated his Arsenal contract and is now a free agent after struggling to break into the Gunners’ first team.
Arsenal has a long history of promoting talented youngsters from its youth teams, but as the club focuses on winning the Premier League, there hasn’t been much opportunity to integrate youth team players into the senior squad.
Rekik, who joined the Gunners in 2021, is one of the players affected by this situation.
He had been confident of breaking into the first team, but after a series of loan moves away from the club, he is now a free agent.
Last season, he was loaned out to Wigan Athletic and Servette, but this summer, no clubs were willing to sign him, even on loan.
Rekik has now opted to terminate his Arsenal contract to increase his chances of finding a new club where he will be valued.
Fabrizio Romano reports that he and Arsenal have reached an agreement, and he is now officially a free agent.
The club has a strong pool of emerging talent and does not want to hinder Rekik’s progress if he believes his future lies elsewhere.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Rekik has not been good enough to break into our first team, and hopefully, he will find a new home to continue his career.
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I have to laugh when I read the sentence, Arsenal have a history of promoting Academy players.
While that was once the case, It certainly hasn’t been the case in Arteta’s reign.
Now the excuse being used is, that were now challenging consistently for the title, and therefore we can’t use the Academy player’s like we would want.
What a load of absolute rubbish. If that’s truly the case, then the club should disband their academy system, because it’s not fit for purpose.
And don’t give me that rubbish, that if they don’t make it at Arsenal, then at least they get a good footballing education and they can go on to play for other teams.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t care what they do when they leave Arsenal, and nothing irritates me more than the thought of this once great club’s academy doing all the work for other teams to benefit from.
What are other peoples thoughts.
@DEREK
Thanks much for the reality check Gooner. It doesn’t get anymore real than this….🎯
DEREK, please let us know which players have come all the way through our academy into the team that is challenging for the title ? The only ones I can recall are Cole and maybe Wilshire.
Herr Drier,
I’m going back a bit, but David Rocastle(Rest in peace), Paul Davis, Michael Thomas, Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Niall Quinn, Martin Hayes, Paul Merson, Kevin Campbell (Rest in peace), David Hillier. Apology’s if I’ve missed anyone.
I know I’m going back a bit, but football did exist before the premier league was formed.
Country to what some people think.
DEREK, so to be pedantic, but the academy only started in the late 90’s.
*sorry, not so.
Herr Drier,
Let me say home grown players then.
A player I missed out incidentally, was one of the best home grown players.
The Romford Pele himself, Ray Parlour.
Bukayo Saka has set the bar so high and unfortunately we don’t have many Bukayos around.But with time the other young lads from Hale End will’ve Buks has there role model and dare to dream.
During wenger’s time arsenal had many young stars which sometimes used to affect our winnings during some physical matches, we used to love the style of play but with no yields.For now let arteta concentrate on his technical work and you concentrate on yours of watching and supporting. For now we want bigger bigger like of 2004/05
And I had to laugh at your comment…. Typical lightweight comment
What’s the matter, the truth hurts does it.
It surely does.
Yep!! The truth hurts but this doesn’t because it’s not the truth. It’s rather funny….
Chronicle,
It is true, name me an academy player that’s come through in Arteta’s reign.
You can’t because there hasn’t been one.
Maybe it would be easier for us if you name any that would have come to the first team and improve or even be at the level therein. Truth is we haven’t had academy players worth promoting and that doesn’t have Arteta to blame. Am happy that Ethan and Lewis-Skelly have had a good pre season with the team and have been kept around.
And what makes him a star?
What else to do? Like the majority of Arsenal fans, I suspect, prior to this story I’d never heard of him. Rekik clearly hasn’t “broken through” (similar to the majority of academy players) and there were no other interested clubs, even for loans which should probably tell us something.
So, the options are either to keep him hanging around on the off chance his prospects improve at Arsenal or to release him by mutual agreement and wish him well. Seems the sensible choice has been made in this case.
@Bertie
Then the question comes to mind as to the academy coaches, who are supposedly developing these young players. Just saying…
Yes, I see your point but, overall, most of the young players who get into the Academy can’t ultimately be “developed” sufficiently to reach a standard for Arsenal to retain them or, perhaps, sell them.
Of course, developing the Academy side is getting more important. Obviously sometimes a few more may break through, sometimes a few less. I’m not saying mistakes aren’t made but overall, for every Saka there are a lot that just aren’t good enough and that’s the same at any club, not just Arsenal.
I personally, I don’t wish for any academy player just to leave like that. This thing of arsenal not integrating academy players into a senior team, it hasn’t started with Arteta, it started way back during Arsen Wenger’s time. I wish Arteta can change that. Because we have good players who can be integrated to a senior team, this help the team not to over spend millions of pounds to buy players.
Started under Wenger?
Off the top of my head (I may have got one or two wrong and missed one or two – HD will correct me I’m sure 😂).
Joe Willock – Chris Willock – Iwobi – ESR – Gibbs – Cole – Gnarby – Bielik – Taylor – Hoyte – Nketiah – Nelson – AMN – Bennacar – Hayden – Watt
GG also produced the likes of Parlour, Adams etc etc
Let’s judge MA on his record and not try to use other managers as an excuse IF one believes he’s done well or not.
Ken
You poked the bear on that one.
Some are not interested in facts, they don’t fit their narrative. You could also go further by saying these academy players under Wenger contributed (small and large) to Arsenal staying in the top 4 for 2 decades.
Wenger had more experience than Arteta at developing players, obviously all the years coaching.
Am I wrong that a selling point of Arteta when we hired him was his work and development of young players at City?
I swear I remember that being mentioned, but somehow never brought up again.
Sadly Arteta prefers buying stars rather than making them, a turnabout from Wenger’s years.
Durand,
Totally agree with everything you said.
Some people just won’t have a word said against Arteta. (I call them the Arteta lovies).
“Arsenal star”? He’s never even played for the first team!
Ken, ESR made his debut under Emery, and Adams made his under Terry Neill, iirc. We lost 2-0 at home to Sunderland on Adams debut, and iirc, he was at fault for both of their goals.
ESR made his debut under Arsene HD, but your correct about Tony – I knew you’d check it for me.
Actually your also correct about ESR, having double checked HD.
I thought Arsene played him in one of the domestic cups, but I can’t find any official reference that backs up my opinion.
He was, of course, getting rave reviews for his performances in the Arsenal and England youth teams while Arsene was around… I just have this nagging feeling that he had appeared in said domestic cup.
My memory is wrecked mate!!
And lately MA is even buying old players rather than promoting youngsters from the academy – Raya, Merino, Sterling, Jorginho, Neto, Zincheko, Gabriel J, Trossard, all 27 plus!
The 3 academy players he has in the squad will not even get game time and yet his rivals like Man City are doing exactly the opposite. I don’t see us winning anything again this season or any time soon having started dropping points so early in the season.
We run the risk of early elimination from the Champions League too 😢
No matter the opinion held by anyone about the academy players, they are all below par to dorn the senior team shirts.
A close look at them in the UEFA Youth Champions League made me conclude that they are too unreal to be Arsenàl players. They could not win a single game out of 6 Champions League games played, both home and away. I don’t blame Arteta, if the team did not do well he’s the one that would be axed not any bystander. If I was in his shoes, I would still do the same as he’s done.
He has to affect his powers there, Arsenal Wenger tried using these so-called Academy players, but, when it got to a stage where he could no longer be tolerated, he was shown the exit door. I am sure that in a part of his heart he’s harbouring some discontent with the Kronkes.
Everyone is talking about Chindo Obi to have scored scores of goals yet, what was their Youth League position last season?
Ethan Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly are with the Senior team now, they will be fully incorporated. Smith-Rowe, Nelson, and Nketiah were given their opportunities but they did not live up to their expectations.
Let’s continue with the new process.
Rekik was a decent prospect so sad to see what happened to him. Arsenal need to improve their loan development strategy how many successful loans have we seen where the player Is loaned out and actually has a good amount of sucesss. Last one was probably Saliba. Patino didn’t work out, nor Sambi nor Nuno.