Arsenal Close to signing Defensive Midfielder — Would You Bielik It!?
Full disclosure here. I have no idea how to pronounce Krystian Bielik’s last name correctly. I’m also not convinced he isn’t just some putty-faced generated player you get from simming your FIFA career to 2029. Honestly, even if his name doesn’t rhyme with the word “believe,” it should, because that would be a) make a damn good pin-up sign, and b) be some incredible speculative punnery from yours truly.
The rather large (he’s 6'2) Pole is apparently on his way to the Arsenal. In what capacity, I don’t know. We’ve been promised time and time again that these teenaged phenoms will magically break into the side and win our hearts within weeks. Though unsurprisingly, it rarely works out that way.
The most recent victim of this wunderkid label in our team is man of the world, Gedion Zelalem. This incredible tri-race species was touted as both physically and technically unrivalled in the academy. He’s apparently been training with the first team since his arrival.
At 16 years old, he was the feather in our cap. He’s 18 in two weeks, and I think he’s played about 8 seconds for us this season.
The same stories apply to the Barça boys, Hector Bellerin and Jon Toral. Sure, Bellerin is progressing nicely now, being afforded sporadic playing time in the side, but what of his compatriot? Toral is still buried in the academy somewhere; probably pulling on Nico Yennaris’s old boots, hacking at pimply porkers on a mud patch in Kent.
By no means am I suggesting that it’s a bad thing we’re not thrusting young players into the spotlight — much the opposite. I’m tired of hearing that X player is in Arsène Wenger’s first team plans prior to the end of the season, and 10 wacky reasons why they’re the best thing in the football universe since the dubbing of the Makelele role.
So, if we do end up signing this kid, I hope we don’t see him for at least three years. Send him on loan to some absolute hell hole in Serie C. Better yet, where’s Gennaro Gattuso managing these days? Send him wherever that mad bastard is. I want him to have had mud in orfices he didn’t know existed before he gets to know the privilege of stepping onto the Emirates’s manicured carpet with two minutes left in injury time.
If you think about it, that’s the background most of our successful homegrown players share, and they’re all better off for it.
