Sunday 10 August 2014

Brady's Freeman insights @ Arsenal

The Irish Examiner is carrying a superb article on Arsenal legend Liam Brady.

I recommend you check it out, as it gives us insights into his role as academy director, which is now presided over by Andries Jonker.

Brady is still about to ensure a smooth transition, but after 20 years in the job, the former left winger had had enough.

In this illuminating article, Brady suggests that one of the main reasons we signed Luke Freeman for around £200k is that the selling club, Gillingham, needed cash.

While that's very charitable, I'd like to think we bought the 'teenage sensation', as he was dubbed then by the newspapers, for footballing reasons too!

Personally, I thought Freeman was a decent striker, albeit not lightning fast, but I was expecting him to score more first-team goals.

He had a decent goals-to-appearances ratio, playing for Arsenal's other teams, but goals were still relatively rare when he was loaned out.

However, like many young strikers, he was often played on the wing, so this adversely affected his statistics.

Now at the age of 22, he's still got plenty of time to add to the 18 league goals he's scored in over 100 appearances.

Perhaps he can take a leaf out of Andrew (he'll always be Andy to me!) Cole's book, now that he's joined Bristol City.

Cole was sold by Arsenal to City for £500k, in 1992, and he never looked back.

At the age of 20, he started scoring goals for fun at first-team level and became a full England international.

Although we'll be ruing the day we let him go, if Freeman goes on to do the same as Cole, I can't help but want him to succeed.

Sent from my iPhone

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