Arsenal underutilise youth loans again with just 2 players leaving | OneFootball

Arsenal only loaned out two youth players in the summer transfer window, as their Premier League rivals continue to benefit from significant academy sales.

Photo via Shrewsbury Town on Twitter

Arsenal have continued to underutilise the loan market this summer, particularly when it comes to youth players.

With the transfer window now closed across much of Europe and the English lower leagues, the Gunners have loaned out two youth players. Ismeal Kabia has joined Shrewsbury Town in League Two, and Lucas Nygaard has joined Danish second division side Brabrand IF.

The situation is very similar to the summer of 2024, when Arsenal’s only academy loans were Jack Henry-Francis to Sligo Rovers and Charles Sagoe Jr. to Shrewsbury Town.

Yet it’s a far cry from 2023, when Arsenal loaned 15 academy players out. And it’s hard to see why the numbers have dropped so dramatically whilst Arsenal’s rivals are significantly profiting from the loan system.

Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images

Chelsea loaned Bashir Humphreys to Burnley in 2024/25, then sold him to Burnley this summer for £14.7m. They loaned Alfie Gilchrist to Sheffield United, then sold him to West Ham for £2m. They loaned out Lesley Ugochukwu to Southampton in 2024/25, then sold him to Burnley for more than £20m.

Liverpool loaned Ben Doak to Middlesbrough, then sold him to Bournemouth for £25m. They loaned Nat Phillips to Derby County, then sold him to West Brom for £3m.

Manchester City loaned Yan Couto to Borussia Dortmund, then sold him to Dortmund for £26m. They loaned Maximo Perrone to Como, then sold him to Como for £13m.

Admittedly both Couto and Perrone joined City at the end of their youth careers, but they made a combined two appearances for City’s senior side and then earned the club £39m thanks to positive loan spells.

Photo via BrentfordFC.com

Arsenal’s only real hope of bringing in similar money for academy graduates next summer will be if Brentford activate their option to buy Reiss Nelson and Kabia is so impressive for Shrewsbury Town that a top club takes notice and bids for him.

To put it politely, the odds of a club paying big money for Nygaard after a loan to the Danish second tier are not particularly great.

Perhaps there are some factors beyond Arsenal’s control at the moment. The Gunners’ top talents have generally ended up in the first team, like Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, and now Max Dowman.

There’s no motivation to loan those three, as they can contribute to the senior side this season. And if they do leave the club in the next few windows, you’d expect Arsenal to profit significantly.

On the other side of things, there probably aren’t too many players in the Arsenal u21s really ready for first-team football. But that logic only goes so far.

Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images

Tommy Setford and Josh Nichols have made their senior Arsenal debuts and performed well, yet they’re set to spend this season in academy football again. Setford picked up an untimely injury at the weekend, but the fact he was even playing that u21 game suggests a loan move was never close.

Maldini Kacurri has just been called up by the Albania senior national team, but again, he’ll be playing his club football in the u21s this season.

Charles Sagoe Jr. is 21 and already has two loan spells behind him, but he’s now taking a backwards step to play in the youth game in 2025/26.

These are players who can and probably should be playing senior football this season, raising their profiles and either returning ready to play for Arsenal or to leave for a profit. Instead, they’ll play in the Premier League 2 again.

If Arsenal continue to play their academy players in youth football until their contracts run out, the best they can possibly hope for is a few training compensation fees. The club’s loan strategy certainly needs some work.