Emile Smith Rowe’s first trial was at Chelsea. A mate from his local team had got a call and his mother told one of the scouts that Smith Rowe was worth a look, too.
So the player spent around a month there, only to be told at the end he had not made it.
“At the time I was really skinny and just kept getting pushed off the ball,” Smith Rowe recalled, the day after receiving his first England call-up. “I wasn’t getting involved and touching the ball enough, that’s what it felt like at the time, why I didn’t get in.”
He was eight years old. Not feeling strong enough compared to the other players is some criticism to come to terms with at eight.
Instead he found a home at Arsenal. That suited him better, anyway. He and his brother are Arsenal fans. And Arsenal were not too bothered about his strength or physicality. They were more concerned with how he well he played football. “When I went to Arsenal it was more about passing the ball and linking up with each other,” he said.
How a south London boy, born in Croydon, found his way to north London’s leading club is another question. Crystal Palace usually have the area locked down when it comes to youth players. But, despite playing in summer schools with the club and spending some time at Fulham, he slipped through their net, and nobody else has caught his attention since. Tottenham Hotspur tried their luck when Smith Rowe was 16 but, though his father is a Spurs fan, the forward was settled at Arsenal by then.
England squad to face Albania and San Marino
Goalkeepers:
- Sam Johnstone
- Jordan Pickford
- Aaron Ramsdale
Defenders:
- Trent Alexander-Arnold
- Ben Chilwell
- Conor Coady
- Reece James
- Tyrone Mings
- Harry Maguire
- Luke Shaw
- John Stones
- Kyle Walker
Midfielders:
- Jude Bellingham
- Jordan Henderson
- Mason Mount
- Declan Rice
- Kalvin Phillips
Forwards:
- Tammy Abraham
- Phil Foden
- Jack Grealish
- Harry Kane
- Bukayo Saka
- Emile Smith Rowe
- Raheem Sterling
At 21 years old, his ascent has seemed quieter than that of some of his England peers with whom he won the Under-17 World Cup in 2017. Phil Foden has been Pep Guardiola’s special project at Manchester City for years, Jadon Sancho made it to Manchester United via a breakout spell at Borussia Dortmund. While they pressed on into first-teams, Smith Rowe had to bide his time.
A loan at RB Leipzig did not go as planned, but a tough spell in the Championship at Huddersfield was transformative. And he also had to sort out his diet.
He found his muscles were cramping around an hour into games and staff told him he was not hydrated enough. Too much chocolate and takeaways, he admits.
“I wasn’t eating great, I wasn’t drinking that well, before games I wasn’t really that hydrated but since then I’ve tried to focus so much on it.
England fixtures
- England vs Albania: 7.45pm on Fri 12 Nov
- San Marino vs England: 7.45pm on Mon 15 Nov
“I didn’t really listen to be honest, I think that’s where I went wrong.” Arsenal now send round a chef to cook for him.
Even so, Smith Rowe was expecting to join up with England’s Under-21s after not making Gareth Southgate’s squad last week but brought in as a late addition after others pulled out.
Recently becoming only the fourth Arsenal player to score in three consecutive Premier League games before their 22nd birthday – following in the footsteps of Cesc Fabregas, Nicolas Anelka and Jose Antonio Reyes – was too hard to ignore.
In many ways, working his way towards the England seniors quietly seems to suit Smith Rowe. He is softly spoken and shy, admitting to nerves before meeting up with the likes of England captain Harry Kane in his first training session yesterday.
Nerves that he has had to get used to. “I’m always really nervous before a game,” he said.
He believes that making his Arsenal breakthrough in empty stadiums due to Covid-19 “and not having that pressure of everyone shouting” helped him to ease into first-team football. And he was “quite surprised” how well he has taken to fans back filling stadiums.
The boy deemed too skinny for Chelsea is taking everyone by surprise.
Why Arsenal fans love Smith Rowe
By Daniel Storey, i‘s chief football writer
Emile Smith Rowe has experienced quite a lot for a player who has only started 42 league matches in his career. He has appeared against Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. He’s had a half-season in the Championship.
He’s played under Unai Emery, Freddie Ljungberg and Mikel Arteta at Arsenal. He’s been the subject of an audacious approach from Aston Villa. He’s been called up by England.
Smith Rowe’s Arsenal career has occurred at two different speeds: slowly and then lightning fast. Before Boxing Day last year, he had made only two league appearances for the club. Since then he has started 28 of their 35 Premier League matches. He only made his England Under-21 debut in March but may make his senior debut in the next week.
Arsenal have lurched between issues since Arsène Wenger’s peak – stadium costs crippling player investment, big names seeking to leave, misguided recruitment and contract extensions – but one persistent on-pitch issue over that long, comparatively miserable period has been an inability to move the ball quickly enough.
It is too much to say that Smith Rowe is the difference-maker. But he is certainly the poster boy for a new Arsenal, not just because he is playing so well but because he has grasped his chance so consummately from a standing start. Bukayo Saka is 15 months his junior but has been a fixture in the team for longer.
Smith Rowe took advantage of Arteta’s new meritocracy – if you’re good enough, you’re experienced enough. He may slip back; Arsenal may slip back. He is a young player and this is a team of young players. The improvement and development of young players are not straight lines on a graph. They are more prone to the trials and travails of football than anyone else.
But Arsenal supporters were never asking for perfection. They were simply crying out for a club in which they could be proud, a team that tried to entertain and a starting XI that contained players who they believed were half as desperate for success as those sitting in the stands.
In Smith Rowe, they have their new hero. They have an attacking midfielder who delights in creating goals and scoring them. They have an Arsenal supporter who has declared his desire to be a club legend. They have a young man who has come a long way in a short period of time and demonstrated a remarkable ability to deal with each step without losing the appealing exuberance of youth. This time next week they might have only their third homegrown England debutant in the past 10 years.
Read Daniel’s full analysis here
The Chelsea star being pushed to greater heights by his England rivals
By Kevin Garside, i chief sports correspondent
Whether by numbers or that old fashioned metric, impressions left via the naked eye, Reece James is in the form of his life.
Chelsea’s right-sided utility back is Chelsea’s joint-top scorer this season with four and followed up his two rasping goals at Newcastle with an assist at home to Burnley.
James typifies the riches available to Gareth Southgate as he looks to secure England’s World Cup qualification in the final group fixtures against Albania and San Marino. That James and Trent Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool’s best player by some distance in the 3-2 defeat at West Ham and according to Jürgen Klopp the best right-back in the word, must vie with Kyle Walker for Southgate’s consideration stiffens the premise that England could field two teams worthy of contending in Qatar.
James identified Walker as a source of inspiration and counsellor as he negotiates the path from prospect to established figure in the international set-up.
It is here already, Southgate the beneficiary of a Premier League dynamic that is driving improvements in the game. We might expect England to source players from the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City. It is the ever-improving quality of the players that delights.
“Each one of us has a different style,” James said. “Trent has been at the top for quite a few years, Kyle too. And there are other fullbacks that are not here who are at a very good level. I’m competing with good players. We keep pushing each other.”
Indeed, two in particular, Brighton’s Tariq Lamptey, at 21 the same age as James, and Southampton’s Tino Livramento, two years his junior, were his contemporaries in the Chelsea youth system and are pushing hard for full international inclusion. It is as well that James has added goals to his CV.
“I don’t know if I can keep it up,” he said. “This is the most goals I have scored in a season. When I was young I was an attacking player. I don’t know if it has come from that.”
The evolution of the position in the modern attacking structure has made the full-back role among the more important. As Jamie Carragher is fond of telling us, few ever grew up wanting to be Gary Neville. That is not the case today with a generation of nippers aspiring to be James or Alexander-Arnold.
The latter’s goal at West Ham, curled over the wall following a free-kick, demonstrated his technical capabilities. James’s unerring thunderbolts at St James’ Park were not speculative punts but brilliant finishes any striker would be pleased to own. This is the standard the Premier League demands, one that is feeding into the most talented England squad since 1966.
One of the great World Cup winning goals was scored by a right-back 51 years ago in Mexico City. It is not beyond the imagination to envisage either James or Alexander-Arnold evoking in Qatar the right boot of Carlos Alberto in the Azteca.
England are among the favourites to succeed 12 months hence and belief that England could win it is sourced in the emergence of the attacking defender as much as the dashing creatives up front.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3knSoYc
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