The youngest player in the history of the Premier League is now one of its youngest scorers. Ethan Nwaneri's goal in Arsenal's 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Sunday, aged 17 years and 247 days, was just the latest milestone in a career already full of them.

With his clinical, first-time finish following a driving run through midfield, he showcased some of the qualities that have marked him out as a special talent. According to Dan Micciche, one of his former coaches in Arsenal's academy, the celebration that followed was typical too.

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"It was a big moment for him but he didn't run away and take his shirt off or anything like that," Micciche tells Sky Sports. "He just went over to Raheem Sterling to thank him for the pass. He has a wonderful temperament. He never gets too high or too low and you can see that in him now."

Micciche uses the word "humble" to describe Nwaneri and he is not the only one. It is a term that comes up repeatedly among those who know him.

Coupled with a level of ability that places him among Arsenal's best academy products of recent decades, it is little wonder he is seen as a star of the not-too-distant future.

Ethan Nwaneri is Next Up.

How injury became opportunity

When Nwaneri was 14, he suffered a stress fracture of his back.

The injury, not uncommon for academy players whose bodies are adapting to the demands of strength and conditioning work, would rule him out of competitive action for three months, a frustrating setback in what was already shaping up to be a thrillingly promising career.   

Three years on, though, as Nwaneri continues to make history at senior level, that period of rehabilitation is remembered in Arsenal's academy as a crucial phase in his development.

That is partly because it gave the previously injury-free youngster a different challenge – and challenging a player of his ability was not easy, which is why he was already featuring for Arsenal's U18s – but mainly because, after an initial period on the sidelines, it allowed him a match-free schedule to work with his coaches individually.

They used the opportunity to focus on specific technical elements of his game. Nwaneri's skill level was already extraordinarily high but the aim was to refine certain elements. There was a focus on his body shape when receiving passes; on ensuring unpredictability in his dribbling.

"Technical ability is the most important thing at the highest level," says Micciche, who coached Nwaneri at U15, U16 and U18 level.

"I know a lot is made of physicality and power nowadays, but above all these players have got to be able to deal with the ball.

"You don't train with the first team often as a young player if you can't deal with the ball because the sessions would break down.

"There was a collection of coaches at Arsenal who did a great job with Ethan because they worked on his strengths rather than his weaknesses.

"They didn't try to turn him into something different. They allowed him to keep his individuality, which was his dribbling, his ball mastery, his freedom of expression.

"They didn't waste time trying to make his right foot as good as his left. Of course, the aim was that he could go both ways, off either foot, and he can do that now, but the priority was the challenge his strengths, and to turn those strengths into what we call super-strengths."

Nwaneri, explosive and powerful when driving with the ball, is of course blessed with outstanding physical attributes too. "He's an efficient mover, which is one of Per Mertesacker’s core pillars in the academy and means he can change direction quickly," adds Micciche.

But the technical focus of the work done at academy level, and specifically in that period of rehabilitation from his injury as a 14-year-old, is bearing fruit.

A player handed his Premier League debut by Mikel Arteta at 15 years and 181 days old against Brentford in September 2022 has emerged as game-changing option in the manager's squad.

There have been four goals in 10 senior appearances in all competitions this season and Nwaneri’s technical class has shone through in every one of them. Given the quality of what he is producing in brief cameos, it is hardly surprising that the clamour for him to start is growing.

Playing up and seizing chances

Nwaneri's habit of impacting games is nothing new.

It was apparent throughout his time in Arsenal's Hale End academy and helps to explain how he was able to excel, rather than just hold his own, when playing up by several age groups.

"When he was an U14, he was playing in the U16s that I took," says Micciche. "Then, when I took the U18s, he was playing regularly for us as an U15.

"That is very unusual, and it wasn't like he was just getting a few minutes here or there, playing it safe and doing a job for the team. He was the best player on the pitch."

Certain games stick in the memory of his academy coaches, including a friendly played at St George's Park in which a 14-year-old Nwaneri featured for Arsenal's U16s against an England U16 side containing Jobe Bellingham and managed by Luton boss Rob Edwards.

"We went up there and within five minutes of the game starting, we scored with an incredible assist from Ethan," recalls Micciche. "Then about five minutes later, he did it again.

"He was the youngest player there, but he was our best player and would have been one of their better ones too. He just had that special talent.

"Players like him are few and far between but that's what they do. The higher the challenge, the better they become."

It was a similar story when Nwaneri stepped up to Arsenal’s U18s.

"We used to work on a specific move which involved a player timing his run to receive in the half-space, then making a cross into narrow area at the far post," says Micciche.

"We had never scored from it. Me and the other coaches actually used to joke about it. 'I wonder if we'll ever actually get a goal from this.'

"But within 10 minutes of Ethan playing in this U18 game, having only worked on it briefly the day before, he went and did it and created a goal from it for a lad called Mathaeus Roberts.

"It was amazing. He just had a fantastic footballing library in his head, and a capacity to not only take information on board but also execute it in games."

Micciche highlights the importance of another attribute. "He has always had very advanced decision-making skills for his age," he says. "But decision-making isn't just about when to dribble or pass.

"It's about how to turn, where to take your first touch, how to realign and use your body. He made mistakes as well. He is a risk-taker and not everything comes off for him. But he has the learning ability to self-correct and take on information from his peers or coaches very quickly."

Education key for star pupil Nwaneri

Nwaneri's appetite for learning was clear to everyone at St John's School in Enfield, where staff members recall him only needing eight minutes of a trial game to earn a full scholarship, and where he excelled academically in conjunction with his commitments in Arsenal's academy, which he joined aged nine.

"I actually had to pull him to one side in that game because he was so good that the other boys weren’t touching the ball," Jason Hodgson, head of PE at St John's, tells Sky Sports.

"He was the best player I had ever seen by a mile and he ticked all the boxes for us. Very well behaved, an unbelievably talented footballer and very academic. After the trial, he took our entrance tests and passed with flying colours."

Nwaneri's humility was key in his academic education as well as at Arsenal. By way of example, Hodgson describes his demeanour when he returned to school the morning after his historic Premier League debut for Arsenal against Brentford two years ago.

"There was absolutely no change in him," says Hodgson. "It was the same old Ethan. He came back in and he was just normal. People were congratulating him, saying well done, but it was just another day for him, 'Let’s get to maths, let’s get on with it.' That's the way he is."

Nwaneri’s commitment to his studies was such that he even arranged to sit GCSE exams while away on international duty with England. "Credit to him and his family for that," says Hodgson.

"He wasn’t just revising while he was away with England, he was actually doing the exams. He did his maths GCSE the morning after playing a game for England U17s at the European Championship in Hungary. We had to organise for examiners to cover it.

"He is an example for us here. We have a lot of young academy players and they all aspire to do what he has done. For him to be scoring for Arsenal, never mind playing, is amazing and shows what is possible.

"And it couldn't have happened to a nicer boy."

Arteta’s influence, Odegaard’s inspiration

Nwaneri was shaped during those years spent splitting his time between school and Arsenal's academy, where his 15-year-old brother, Emerson, is also enrolled. But Arteta's role in his rise to prominence has been significant too.

Although he claimed the decision to hand Nwaneri his Premier League bow aged 15 in 2022 was motivated by "gut instinct" at the time, in reality it was more calculated, an attempt to show the club's most prodigiously talented young player a pathway to the first-team.

Arteta had, after all, been aware of Nwaneri’s talents since his very first week in the job three years earlier, when he sought out Micciche, one of his coaches at the time, to quiz him on a player already turning heads aged 12 at Hale End, and asking for a video to be sent to him.

Arteta followed his progress closely from that point on and was actively involved in the club's efforts to secure his future, sitting in on meetings with Nwaneri's family alongside Edu, Arsenal's now departed sporting director, and academy personnel.

"Retaining Ethan was not a foregone conclusion," says Micciche. "I don't mean he threatened to leave or anything like that, I just mean it was common knowledge that this boy was special. He could have gone anywhere in Europe.

"There's no doubt other big clubs in England were well aware of him because Arsenal never hid him and he always performed well against them. It helped that Mikel was so involved, also having him train with the first-team very early and taking him on pre-season tours."

Nwaneri eventually formalised his commitment to Arsenal, despite interest from elsewhere, by signing his first professional contract after his 17^th birthday in March and soon became a fully-fledged member of the senior squad.

Arteta has marvelled at his bravery and personality – "you can tell he plays without pressure and with confidence," he said earlier this season – but there has also been a focus on improving his defensive work, and honing his understanding of the complex off-the-ball demands of the Spaniard's system.

Nwaneri has taken the task with characteristic willingness, helped by the fact he counts club captain Martin Odegaard as a role model and mentor. The Norwegian stands out for his off-the-ball intelligence as well as his attacking qualities. His guidance, as a player who also made his professional debut aged 15, has been invaluable.

"You have to remember Ethan is obsessed with football," says Micciche. "He has always learned a lot from watching his role models and that has been accelerated by training with the first team every day."

Nwaneri's future now looks brighter with every appearance. He almost followed his first Premier League goal with one in the Champions League during his latest cameo, against Sporting on Tuesday night.

His rapid progress is no surprise to his former coaches.

"I was fortunate to coach Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Cole Palmer in England's youth teams," says Micciche. "For me, Ethan is in that tier.

"When he was 13 or 14, I would say to people at Arsenal that he was at the level of those players, if not more advanced."

The comparison with Foden is particularly interesting given that, at 17, Nwaneri has already made more Premier League appearances than the Manchester City forward had at 18.

He is ahead of fellow academy graduate Bukayo Saka for appearances at the same age too, which is all the more impressive considering the level at which Arsenal are now competing.

When Saka emerged, they were scrapping for top-four finishes. It is far tougher for a young player to make his mark in a team challenging for major honours but that is exactly what Nwaneri is doing.

"At the age he is, playing for a club as big as Arsenal and being on the pitch and having an impact, there's no doubt Ethan has the chance to become a regular starter and a key player, in the mould of Bukayo," says Micciche. "He has all the attributes and, as you're seeing, he is not fazed by anything.

"What I love most about him is that his feet do the talking for him. He goes about his business quietly. He's very humble, very focused and very driven. He’s an absolute pleasure to work with."

And this is just the start. Ethan Nwaneri is Next Up.

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