Mikel Arteta was purring about Max Dowman after the teen sensation played a huge role in extending Arsenal’s perfect start to the season.
Dowman, still only 16-years-old, scored twice in the Gunners’ 4-1 rout at Ipswich Town as they advanced into the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.
Dowman scored at the start of each half at Portman Road, with Noni Madueke and Mikel Merino also getting in on the act to kill the game as a contest before the hour mark. Ipswich notched through Anis Mehmeti and Chuba Akpom but they were merely consolation strikes.
Post-match, all the chat from Arsenal chief Arteta was about star prodigy Dowman: “It’s a joy to have him, a 16-year-old, to play at the level with the physicality they have to be able to handle that level. It’s remarkable. And Max, yeah, it’s inevitable to talk about him when he scores and he creates the moments that he has created tonight. It’s normal.
“He can deliver those actions effortlessly, I would say. That’s his biggest quality. And defensively, his application, his capacity as well to sustain the actions, which is not easy. He’s 16-years-old and he can create moments but consistently to go through the game, every phase, with the demands that we put in them, to be able to do that is extremely difficult. And he’s coping better and better and better.”
Sounding a note of caution, the Spaniard added: “What we have to do is look after him. He’s 16-years-old. You don’t see that in this league. In other leagues in Europe, that’s a totally different context. But in this league, with the demands that the league [has], the players and everything put on you, we really need to make sure every time we throw him in, he’s in the right context with the right preparation. That’s what we are trying to do.”
Arsenal have now won all seven games this season, across four competitions and will attempt to make it a perfect eight at Brighton on Saturday before the extended international break.
As for Ipswich, they can now focus fully on the league between now and January. Manager Gary O’Neil said: “I thought we got heavily punished. It was a game that was made to look really one-sided by the scoreline that probably wasn’t really.”
