Where are they now? Arsenal’s 10 wonderkids from Football Manager 2016 | OneFootball

Arsenal are rather proud of their academy with Bukayo Saka the latest product to have found a home in the starting lineup but not every player has enjoyed that level of success.

Football Manager players often like to get ahead of the curve and sign the next wonderkids but while they may be stars in game, not every wonderkid lives up to their potential.

Ten years on, here are the Arsenal wonderkids of FM16 and how their careers played out.

Calum Chambers

With first team appearances at a premium, Chambers left Arsenal on loan to Middlesbrough and then Fulham before leaving the Emirates for good in 2022.

From there, he moved to Villa where he spent three seasons before he dropped down a division to join Cardiff.

For the Welsh club, Chambers made 41 appearances in the Championship in the 2024-25 season but was unable to prevent them from dropping into League One.

Hector Bellerin

One of the more surprising letdowns of Arsenal wonderkids was Bellerin who failed to live up to his early potential.

A termination of his deal at the Emirates allowed him to move to Barcelona but only as cover for Sergiño Dest.

In total, he made just seven appearances for his hometown club before moving to Portugal and Sporting. A season there and he was back in Spain, this time finding a more permanent home at Real Betis.

This season, he has played 12 times in the league for the club, picking up two assists, and is still only 30.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles

In search of regular minutes, Maitland-Niles went on loan to Mick McCarthy’s Ipswich in the 2015-16 but struggled to make himself a permanent fixture for Arsenal once he returned.

In 2021, he was off on loan again, this time to West Brom before two more spells at Roma and Southampton.

In 2023, Maitland-Niles’ time at Arsenal came to a permanent end when he joined Lyon and he is 11 appearances shy of a century for the French club. In that time, Lyon have finished sixth in both seasons and are currently seventh.

Vlad Dragomir

Attacking midfielder Dragomir would never graduate from the Arsenal academy but instead joined Romanian club ACS Poli Timisoara where he made his debut at the age of just 15.

Dragomir spent just one season there before moving to Italian club Perugia and then Virtus Entella before joining Cypriot club Pafos in 2021.

He has since made 170 appearances for the club, winning the First Division in the 2024-25 season.

Daniel Crowley

Midfielder Crowley is only 28 but has played for 12 clubs already in his career.

Following a trio of loans at Barnsley, Oxford United and Go Ahead Eagles, Crowley left Arsenal openly to join Dutch side Willem II before returning back to England with Birmingham in 2019.

A season spent at Cheltenham preceded a return to Willem II before he was back in England once more, first with Morecambe and then Notts County.

This past summer, he signed for League Two outfit MK Dons and has played 10 times in the league for them this season.

Gedion Zelalem

Arsenal was the sixth club of midfielder Zelalem’s career but he would only ever make four first-team appearances for the north London club.

In the meantime, he spent time on loan at Rangers and VVV-Venlo before crossing the Atlantic to join Sporting Kansas City.

In 2020, he moved to the Manchester City-owned New York City FC but he was limited to 21 appearances in three seasons and then returned to the Netherlands with Den Bosch.

In 2024, he moved to Croatian club Lokomotiva before joining New Mexico United in 2025.

Jeff Reine-Adelaide

After Arsenal, midfielder Reine-Adelaide returned to his native France where he joined Angers before moving to Lyon in 2019.

However, he never made the cut and spent time at clubs like Troyes, RWD Molenbeek and Salernitana before moving Heracles in the Netherlands this summer.

Serge Gnabry

Clearly the biggest hit on this list is Gnabry who went from an Arsenal reject to one of Bayern Munich’s best players.

The road to Bayern came via a loan to West Brom, where he played just once, and then on to Werder Bremen where he hit 11 goals in 27 games.

That got Bayern’s attention who signed him ahead of the 2018-19 season and he repaid them with 10 goals in his 30 Bundesliga appearances.

That started a consistent scoring run for the German who hit double digits in the next four seasons and in the Bundesliga this season, he has scored four and created three in his nine matches and has played for the club 300 times.

Donyell Malen

His Arsenal career may not have worked out but Malen has found success elsewhere. After leaving the Gunners, he moved home to the Netherlands and Jong PSV, the reserve team of PSV Eindhoven before moving up to the first team in 2018.

55 goals in 116 games saw Borussia Dortmund come calling and he scored 39 times in 132 for the German side.

In January 2025 and with Jhon Durán potentially leaving for Saudi, Aston Villa signed Malen for £21m and he scored his first Premier League goal in April.

This season, he has started just three games for the Birmingham club but has scored three goals, most recently in a 4-0 defeat over Bournemouth.

Chuba Akpom

Akpom had six different loan spells during his time at Arsenal but it was not until he moved to PAOK in 2018 that he found any kind of form.

In Greece, he scored 14 goals in 54 league matches which was enough for Middlesbrough to come calling. After an inconsistent first year, he was back on loan to PAOK in 2021 but the following year, Akpom produced his strongest season to date, scoring 28 goals in 38 Championship games and firing Boro to the playoffs.

That got him on the radar of Ajax who purchased him in 2023 but he failed to rediscover that kind of form and spent the 2024-25 season on loan.

In the past summer, Ipswich beat Birmingham to his signing on a season-long loan but his appearances have been limited for Kieran McKenna’s side so far.

For the Tractor Boys, Akpom has played 11 league games but has yet to get off the scoring mark.