ARSENAL’S LUCKY CHARM
How Smith Rowe has been key to lifting the gloom
THE impression Emile Smith Rowe has made during his first sustained run for Arsenal should come as no surprise, given his impact at the two other clubs he has represented.
In five games since his longawaited reintroduction against Chelsea last month, Arsenal have won four and drawn one.
They have not scored a goal without Smith Rowe being on the pitch or conceded when he has been on it, either.
Equally, nobody can doubt the contribution the youngster nicknamed the Croydon De Bruyne has made in helping lift the gloom over Arsenal.
Smith Rowe, 20, arriving like a breath of fresh air will sound familiar to those who worked with the gifted attacking midfielder at RB Leipzig and Huddersfield.
Smith Rowe joined Arsenal aged 10 and broke into the first team in 2018, scoring a wonder goal in pre- season against Atletico madrid, then adding three more goals in his first six competitive appearances, including one on his full Europa League debut at Qarabag.
His impact on games, from the start or off the bench, was one of the qualities that caught Leipzig’s attention before they signed him on loan in January 2019.
Smith Rowe integrated quickly, helped by head of recruitment and long- term admirer Paul mitchell, who went out of his way to help the Arsenal youngster acclimatise, speaking to Leipzig’s new arrival daily.
And it was not long before he was being held up as an example to Leipzig’s academy hopefuls. He was the type of player they wanted to produce themselves — creative but hard-working, quick, agile, comfortable on both flanks as well as centrally, and two-footed.
The fitness issues that restricted Smith Rowe to three appearances were a source of frustration for
Leipzig and the player, who was desperate to show what he was made of.
He arrived with a small, growthrelated groin problem that only time would heal.
Leipzig thought they had resolved it when Smith Rowe produced back-to-back cameos against Bayern munich and Werder Bremen.
But after borrowing another player’s boots in training, Smith Rowe slipped and aggravated the problem. Leipzig are convinced that this injury prevented him producing stand- out performances that would have increased their determination to sign him permanently.
But despite his lack of action, the move was not in vain. Smith Rowe returned more mature after living away from home for the first time and got a taste of the status he was striving for at Arsenal, that of a fully-fledged first teamer.
Another loan spell, at Huddersfield for the second half of last season, edged him closer. Smith Rowe’s willingness to test himself in the heat of a Championship relegation battle impressed and surprised in equal measure when he had easier options.
Then his talent, and brushing off some early attempts to rough him up in training, helped earn the trust of Huddersfield’s senior stars. They swiftly realised Smith Rowe was the real deal and could help them survive, which he duly did. He became close to the experienced Andy King, Danny Simpson and Richard Stearman, who took Smith Rowe under their wing.
The move to Huddersfield also meant that head of football operations Dave Webb finally got his man, having previously tried to persuade a 15-year-old Smith Rowe to swap Arsenal for Spurs.
‘The way he played, moved, could receive the ball on the half-turn under pressure, he just stood out,’ Webb said of the day Smith Rowe first caught his eye with a starring performance for Arsenal’s under 18s aged 15.
Those qualities are becoming more widely known — as is Smith Rowe’s knack of delivering on big occasions. He did so throughout his FA Youth Cup days and for England’s youth teams, where he was an under-the-radar part of the World Cup-winning under 17 squad four years ago.
He has now taken his happy habit into mikel Arteta’s Arsenal team. It is another one that looks much better with Smith Rowe in it.
IN July 2008, Sir Alex Ferguson sat by the side of a pitch in Durban and told a group of us that he had to start being fairer to Wayne Rooney.
He admitted he had been moving him round the pitch too much and it was time to restore him to centre forward.
Ferguson’s words were wellintentioned but didn’t come to much. A month later, the Manchester united manager spent £ 30million on signing Dimitar Berbatov.
So as time went on, Rooney continued to suffer for his willingness and his versatility. Ferguson shunted him here, there and everywhere to plug holes in his team.
It irritated Rooney at times but he never said much. He got on with it and, between that summer and Ferguson’s retirement five years later, he won three more Premier league titles. The bottom line is that Rooney saw the bigger picture in a way that Mesut Ozil never has.
Rooney retired last week with dreams fulfilled and ambitions sated. Ozil, meanwhile, is about to leave English football without leaving behind so much as a single footprint.
Ozil gets an awful lot of attention, doesn’t he? He has his supporters, those who appreciate his remarkable vision and anticipation, his ability to read a situation and pass the ball beautifully.
It’s just weird those people can’t also see the stuff he doesn’t do. like running, for example.
But Ozil only attracts so much focus because he is so talented and because much of the past seven and a half years has been a waste.
Players of his ability do not come along very often. The German was presented with an opportunity to become the focal point of one of Europe’s great clubs when he arrived at Arsenal and he failed to take it.
He could have become the answer but instead he morphed into just another problem.
Speak to players and they will tell you what truly great talent needs. It needs hard work, desire and application smeared on top of it. Otherwise, it withers. Cristiano Ronaldo was as vain as they come. His united teammates joked he needed a dressing room mirror all to himself. But nobody cared about that.
The men who patrolled that dressing room at united — Roy Keane, Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs — didn’t care because they also knew nobody at the club spent longer on the training pitch or took more whacks to the ankles in pursuit of success than Ronaldo did.
Which brings us back to Rooney. There is an argument that he never quite reached the heights we all set for him when he joined united in 2004 and there is probably something in that.
I remember him making mugs of a couple of united defenders during a cameo as a 16-year-old substitute for Everton at Old Trafford in October 2002.
I remember the debut hat-trick for united against Fenerbahce two years later.
Rooney seemed destined to be a great of the world game and maybe never quite became one. But that, in a way, is the point. If he didn’t quite get to touch the stars in the way we thought, he still found another way to get to where he wanted to go.
Rooney finished his playing career last week as united and England’s record goalscorer.
He knows what it takes to be a No 9 but also a No 10.
He has played as a No 7 and also as a No 8. Had you asked him, he would have stood in at No 5 or No 6 as well.
That depth of knowledge has been acquired over years of application and dedication. Now that he has become a manager, it should serve him well.
As for Ozil, what has he learned from what were supposed to be his peak years? He is 32 now. What, in essence, has been the point of it all? Ian.Ladyman@dailymail.co.uk