The stats and records around our latest debutants

Wednesday night's Carabao Cup success against Bolton Wanderers saw our academy take centre stage, as six youngsters all featured at points during the 5-1 success - sending the Gunners statisticians into a frenzy.

Each of the last five players to make their debut for our men’s first team are graduates of our youth academy, and we've taken a look through the numbers to see what impact they've made on our record books:

no. 1 in at no.2

Goalkeeper Jack Porter became the youngest player ever to start a competitive match in our history at 16 and 72 days. He’s also the second youngest overall, behind his teammate on Wednesday, Ethan Nwaneri, who was only 15 when he debuted as a substitute two years ago against Brentford, breaking the English top-flight record in the process. 

Cesc Fabregas (16 and 177 days) is now our third youngest of all time, with current under-18 head coach Jack Wilshere (16 and 256 days) fourth:

The new boys

Throughout our history we have had 52 debutants aged 17 or under, including Myles Lewis-Skelly, who was three days short of his 18th birthday when he came on for his debut against Manchester City last weekend. 

His full debut came on Wednesday, and Myles was one of three players alongside Porter and Nwaneri who weren’t even born when Emirates Stadium hosted its first match in August 2006.

Another of our debutants against Bolton was right-back Josh Nichols, born in July 2006. He has been with the club since the age of nine, joining Hale End in March 2016, originally as a forward. Josh played the full 90 minutes, and was joined on the pitch in the second half by two more academy products making their first-team bows – Maldini Kacurri and Ismeal Kabia, both 18. 

Central defender Maldini was born in Lewisham but is an Albania youth international, and as such is the first Albanian to represent our first team - the 63rd different nationality represented in our history. He joined us in 2022 aged 16 from Fulham’s youth setup, so although he was part of our academy, he did not grow up at Hale End. 

The fourth and final debutant on Wednesday was flying winger Ismeal, who began at Hale End at the age of 11 in 2017. Born in Hengelo, Netherlands in December 2005, he is also eligible to play for Sierra Leone, and has started the season in fine form, scoring in both the EFL Trophy and Premier League 2 in the under-21s’ unbeaten start to the season. 

Arteta's faith

With an average of 23 years and 87 days, this was the youngest starting line-up Mikel Arteta has named in his near-five-year spell as our manager. He has now handed debuts to 12 academy products since taking over in December 2019, meaning 92 of the 223 players to begin their Gunners careers since the turn of the century came through our youth system. 

There have now been a grand total of 909 players represent our men’s first team across our 5,860-match history, with each having their own individual ‘Heritage Number’. Mikel's is 795, Academy Manager Per Mertesacker made his debut in the same game in September 2011 and is number 794, while under-18s head coach Wilshere is 767.

Nichols is now 906, with Porter 907 (when two players make their debut at the same time, the numbering goes in order of who joined the club earlier). Kacurri is 908 and Kabia 909. 

Ethan eying another record?

Fabregas may have been usurped as our youngest-ever starter, but he still holds the record as our youngest scorer, aged 16 years and 212 days. 

Nwaneri scored his first senior goals for the club on Wednesday, becoming the youngest player to score for us since Wilshere in September 2008, and to notch a brace since Arturo Lupoli did so against Everton in November 2004 (17y 138d).

However he was one away from breaking a record that has stood for nearly 60 years. John Radford has been in the record books as our youngest ever hat-trick scorer (at 17 years and 315 days) since January 1965. Ethan has about four months left to break that record!