How Huddersfield Town saw what was to come with future Arsenal star - He was a Terriers favourite | OneFootball

Emile Smith-Rowe enjoyed a brief but successful stint at Huddersfield Town before breaking out at Arsenal

Huddersfield Town fans won’t be surprised that Emile Smith-Rowe has gone on to become an accomplished Premier League star with both Arsenal and Fulham.

The playmaker enjoyed a stint on loan with the Terriers, joining the club during the second half of the 2019-20 campaign.

At the age of 19, he moved to the Yorkshire outfit as they hoped to climb the Championship table and fight for their place back in the top flight.

While that ultimately didn’t pan out too well, with Danny Cowley’s side coming a disappointing 18th place in the table, supporters still enjoyed the impact Smith-Rowe had on the side.

The Arsenal youngster joined for the remainder of the season, and featured regularly, starting 13 of his 19 appearances in the Championship.

Emile Smith-Rowe’s big impact in a short time at Huddersfield Town

Smith-Rowe is now a regular presence at Premier League level, having starred for Arsenal and Fulham over the last several years.

But before he broke into Mikel Arteta’s side, he had an incredibly underwhelming stint on loan at RB Leipzig.

He played three times in the Bundesliga, amounting for a total of just 29 minutes on the pitch, before the Gunners opted to instead send him on loan to Huddersfield.

Supporters didn’t know what to expect when he joined Cowley’s side given his lack of senior experience, though it's worth noting that Smith-Rowe did join with a strong reputation in youth football after emerging as one of the North Londoners' most prodigious young talents in recent years.

However, it didn’t take long for him to make a strong impression, with the teenager scoring and assisting in a 3-2 loss to promotion-chasing Fulham on 1 February, just his third appearance for the club.

While he would only contribute one more goal and one more assist, his general level of performance was quite high and showed his potential to compete in the top flight. Classy and composed in possession with the ability to breeze past opposition defenders and break lines with inventive forward passing, Smith-Rowe showed flashes of what was to come with no shortage of potential, even if, quite naturally, he wasn't always consistent in West Yorkshire.

An 86th minute winner against West Brom in the penultimate game of the campaign gave fans one last moment to enjoy in an otherwise disappointing year after they’d suffered relegation 12 months prior, with Smith-Rowe's impact in helping the side avoid the drop to League One not to be understated.

Emile Smith-Rowe’s Huddersfield Town performances led to Arsenal breakthrough

The Yorkshire outfit were unable to secure any move to bring Smith-Rowe back to the club for the following campaign.

This was because Arteta had much greater plans for Smith-Rowe than spending more time in the Championship.

It only took 19 appearances in the second division to convince the Spaniard that the playmaker was someone he needed to keep around his first team squad.

Arsenal were going through a serious transition at this point, with the team struggling more than it had at any point in the previous 20 years.

Arteta made the decision to double down on youth, with the likes of Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka joining Smith-Rowe as an important part of the team going forward.

While it didn’t happen immediately in the 2020/21 campaign, Smith-Rowe went on to feature 20 times in the Premier League, as well as 11 times in the Europa League.

The following year, he scored 10 in the top flight from 33 appearances, with Arsenal earning a fifth place finish.

Smith-Rowe couldn’t quite nail down a regular starting place after that, with injuries hampering his progress, which led to a move to Fulham.

But it was his stint at Huddersfield that helped pave the way for his rise to being a Premier League star.