Arsenal have officially started their pre-season.
The Gunners welcomed many of their players back to the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Wednesday, where Mikel Arteta took charge of his first training session of the summer.
New signings Martin Zubimendi and Kepa Arrizabalaga participated for the first time since their arrival, while regulars Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Declan Rice, among others, were all present as well.
However, another player was called up to the first-team training session — Max Dowman.
Dowman is arguably the best 15-year-old footballer in the country.
The teenager hasn’t played for the Arsenal first team yet, but every fan knows his name already — that’s how big a talent he is.
Dowman could not get any minutes last season because he was too young, but he is expected to play a part under Arteta in the upcoming campaign.
The Arsenal manager has hailed Dowman in the past, and on Wednesday, he called him up to train with the senior side on the first day of pre-season.
Dowman shared a few pictures of himself in training on his Instagram. In one of them, he can be seen being greeted by Rice and in another, he is embracing skipper Martin Odegaard.
Arsenal will fly out to Asia for their pre-season games against AC Milan, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur later this month, and Dowman is expected to be in the squad.
It will be interesting to see how many opportunities he will get.
Dowman is an extraordinary talent.
The teenager has been impressive at different age groups at youth level — he has already played for the U21s despite being just 15.
That is very rare, and even Arteta has been blown away by Dowman.
He said in January this year, as per the Mirror: “Very impressive at his age. Some of the things he does in training are unbelievable.
“He’s a player with a huge talent that we have a lot of belief that we can develop him into becoming one of our own and he’s doing very well so far.”
