Arsenal’s academy product, Chuba Akpom has impressed his current club, Sint-Truidense V.V. and the Belgian outfit wants to make his loan move permanent in the summer. The 22-year-old nabbed his first goal in his second start for STVV through an impressive long-range effort.
Chris O’Loughlin, a coach at STVV was quoted, “We exclude nothing, but everything depends on Arsenal. I don’t think they can already answer about their plans for Chuba next season. It is too early for that.”
Akpom’s talents were unappreciated in the Arsenal ranks with a host of attackers fielded in front of him. He made two senior team appearances under Arsene Wenger this season before making the switch to De Kanaries.
Born of Nigerian descent, Akpom is eligible to play for the African nation but chose to play for England and made 44 total appearances for the youth ranks.
Akpom never could break into the first team squad and only managed rare appearances after being introduced to the senior team in the 2013/14 pre-season tour. He spent the majority of the last 4 years out on loan to Brentford, Coventry City, Nottingham Forest, Hull City and Brighton & Hove Albion.
However, is it too soon to say that Akpom is a bust in the Premier League? His chances are surely hampered by the arrival of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette over the past two transfer windows.
Arsene Wenger has preferred even Danny Welbeck over the Canning Town-born striker and has already bolstered the youth ranks. He has already signed Konstantinos Mavropanos from PAS Giannina in the January window – a 20-year-old centre-back and tied down the services of Eddie Nketiah, Matt Macey and Ben Sheaf to long-term deals.
The latter trio has been rewarded this season with their senior team debuts and Nketiah shone brightly after scoring twice in the 2-1 win over Norwich City in the EFL League Cup.
Developing the youth squad is one of Wenger’s top-most priorities as the manager of the North London club and Akpom is one of those products who did not quite fulfil the expectations of the Arsenal faithful.
While they are competing for a possible return to the Champions League, the team already values the presence of the big money arrivals in the final third and Akpom’s future in an Arsenal shirt might be close to being over. He certainly has potential but Wenger and Arsenal currently need more ready-made products and can no longer rely on youngsters. But do you think they should take a chance with Akpom?
