Joe Willock knows exactly what it takes to make the step up to first-team football.
Our Hale End graduate progressed through our academy system to make his senior debut under Arsène Wenger in April 2018, and is closing in on 70 first-team appearances.
So how did it feel for Willock to watch Folarin Balogun, a fellow youngster, make his first appearance for Mikel Arteta's side?
"I thought he did well," he told Arsenal.com. "It's never easy coming on for such a big team and making your debut.
"I thought he did well, he's scoring a lot of goals in the under-23s and that's all he can do. I'm happy for him and I congratulated him because I was once in that position. I told him to kick on, keep working hard and that he'd get more opportunities at this club."
Willock marked his first Europa League start of the season with a goal and an assist against Dundalk.
And now he's got a taste for it, he can't wait to tackle our next challenge.
"I thought I did well, I thought I contributed with a fair amount," he said. "That's what I want to do, I want to score goals, create goals and to get an assist and a goal, I'm really happy to do that. I just want to push on and do it more in the Premier League.
"For my goal, we had a break and it came to me, it dropped to me kind of fast but I stayed composed, I looked at the keeper and I slotted it in. I've been working on it in training so I'm happy it paid off."
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