When Football Manager 2013 was released back in early November 2012, Arsenal were facing something of an uncertain future.
Robin Van Persie had fired the Gunners to Champions League qualification during the 2011-12 campaign but he’d departed to spearhead the title charge of bitter rivals Manchester United.
Lucas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla had arrived to bolster Arsene Wenger’s squad, while – as ever – Arsenal’s famous Hale End academy was producing some bright lights for the future.
The 2012-13 season would be one to forget as Arsenal finished fourth and suffered an eighth successive trophyless campaign. But what became of that year’s batch of promising youngsters?
We’ve gone back and taken a look at Arsenal’s eight young guns that FM 2013 had earmarked as ‘wonderkids’ (via FM Scout) and how their careers have actually panned out a decade later.
Emiliano Martinez
Listed under his Christian name ‘Damian Martinez’ back then, the Argentinian had been with the Gunners since arriving as a 17-year-old from boyhood club Independiente in 2010.
He received his first taste of senior football as a teenager during an emergency loan to Oxford United – a chastening 3-0 defeat to Port Vale – and loans to Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Wolves, Getafe and Reading followed in his youth.
The goalkeeper was toughened up by his experience in the bowels of the Football League and eventually emerged to feature intermittently for the Gunners in the latter half of the 2010s – the highlight being his starring role in the Gunners’ 2020 FA Cup triumph.
Now 30, Martinez is an established Premier League goalkeeper at Aston Villa and Argentina’s undisputed No.1.
Carl Jenkinson
Signed as a youth prospect from fellow London club Charlton, it was always adorable how much Jenkinson loved representing Arsenal, the club he’d grown up supporting.
He made a total of 70 appearances for the Gunners between 2011 and 2019, amid a series of injury issues and loans away. Unfortunately he never quite possessed the quality to establish a regular place in Arsenal’s defence, but he’ll forever remain popular with the fans due to his affinity with the club.
Jenkinson left Arsenal for Nottingham Forest in 2019 and nowadays is turning out for Newcastle Jets in the Australian A-League.
Wow, Carl Jenkinson has really left Arsenal for another club!
We all know how hard it must have been for him to leave his boyhood club but I think it was the…
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