Long, long wait continues for the Croydon De Bruyne

In the relatively short career of footballers, they will occasionally experience those seemingly unremarkable yet key moments that can define the months – and even years – ahead. The sort of incidents that go largely unnoticed unless you live through them. This has been the case with Emile Smith Rowe this season, finally free of discomfort for the first time since he was a teenager following a groin operation in September 2022, stronger than ever, hoping for the chance to establish himself back in Arsenal’s starting XI.

The 23-year-old had to be patient, but his first Premier League start of the season at the end of October against Sheffield United had been going well until he took a knock to his knee.

Only a minor setback, but a setback nonetheless. Still, he was back in December, training hard and well, waiting for a chance. And he was due to start only his second league game of the season, against West Ham just after Christmas, only to roll his ankle in training the week before.

It wasn’t enough to keep him out of the squad, but it meant he only came on from the bench with 11 minutes remaining. And so going into this month’s international break, a trip to Nottingham Forest on 30 January remains Smith Rowe’s only other Premier League start this season. A peculiar situation for a player once hailed as the future for Arsenal. Were it not due to that operation, a few unfortunate quirks of fate and a manager who rarely plays him, Smith Rowe could be lining up in the England starting XI that will face Brazil this evening.

England manager Gareth Southgate had long tracked

Smith Rowe and had been spotted on many occasions taking time to chat to the player at St George’s Park when he was there with younger age groups. He was due to include him in his squad for the World Cup in Qatar until he required the operation.

Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal boss, described him as a “beautiful” footballer after that Forest game, yet since then Smith Rowe has been afforded only 20 minutes across two games.

How is it that to become the player his potential promised, he will likely have to leave the club he joined aged 10? What has happened to that 20-year-old who took the Premier League by storm but now lives under a grey cloud?

It’s actually a common misconception that Smith Rowe is always injured, or that he isn’t being selected because he is prone to injury. Bar those unfortunately timed knocks, he has been raring to go since recovering from that operation 18 months ago.

Off the back of finishing behind only Bukayo Saka as Arsenal’s second top scorer in the 2021-22 season and scoring on his first England start, four games into the following season and he tore a tendon in his groin at Old Trafford. In some ways, it was a blessing: the surgery not only fixing the tear but also the growth-related groin problem that had meant he played in discomfort since he was 18.

Smith Rowe had rarely spoken publicly about the issue, but said after the operation: “It has been quite hard to deal with it over the years, but I am really happy that it is just finally over.”

It’s ironic that during a period when he has been in no discomfort, minutes on the pitch have proven hardest to come by.

People who have followed Smith Rowe’s career closely say he has grown hugely since his first England call-up. Mental toughness has come from the adversity of being out for so long with injury, which can have a profound effect upon players.

On the advice of coaches he has bulked up physically – over the years he was often found in the gym at the club’s London Colney training base. He is described as a hungry player, with a real fire inside (in the past when he lost, he would not speak to anyone for 24 hours). And it is another misconception that he is shy or introverted – he may not be one to play up to the cameras, but he has been a popular member of many changing rooms. In many iterations of the Arsenal squad. In the Under-17 World Cup-winning squad, which included Phil Foden and Conor Gallagher. In the Under-21 European Championship-winning squad last year, when he played alongside

Levi Colwill, Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon.

Smith Rowe should be vying for a place in the Euro 2024 squad with them, rather than watching his peers push on while he struggles for minutes despite his versatility. He often played off the left in those breakout months, even though in the academy he had played on the right. But Arteta now mainly sees him as a central player: a false nine, a 10, an attacking eight, putting him in direct competition with Kai Havertz, a £65m summer signing, and Martin Odegaard, the captain.

Last summer the club did not want to sell Smith Rowe and when in January West Ham expressed interest in taking him on loan until the end of the season, Arsenal turned them down.

But this summer is seen as pivotal to his career. He will turn

24, with only two years remaining on his contract. Like most clubs, Arsenal will be mindful of profit and sustainability rules when spending in the summer and, as an academy product, Smith Rowe represents the “pure profit” clubs now crave. When Smith Rowe signed a five-year deal in 2021 and took on the No 10 shirt previously worn by Mesut Özil, Arsenal technical director Edu said he “represents the future of the club” – something that has been said about him repeatedly since then – yet his best years are currently in the past. After Smith Rowe broke into the first team from December 2020, teammates started calling him the “Croydon De Bruyne”, a nickname that soon made its way into the England camp via Jack Grealish. (For a period Arsenal defender Kieran Tierney would address him as “Kevin”, although Arteta preferred his players did not heap too much pressure on him.)

Those two players may seem worlds apart now, but trace back Kevin De Bruyne’s career and there are similarities. De Bruyne was 22 when he told Chelsea he had had enough of not playing under Jose Mourinho and wanted to leave. That was one of De Bruyne’s defining moments – having the confidence to tell Chelsea all he wanted to do was play and if it meant elsewhere then so be it.

The Belgian left for Wolfsburg, many believing he was not cut out for the Premier League and would not be back. Less than two years later he signed for Manchester City, and everyone knows how that story turned out.