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Arsenal promote 15-year-old wonderkid to first team
Cameron Smith
- 19 May 2025 08:30 CDT
- 4 min read
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Arsenal have reportedly informed 15-year-old wonderkid Max Dowman that he will be promoted into Mikel Arteta’s first-team squad next season.
The England youth international is regarded as one of the best talents to ever emerge from Arsenal’s Hale End academy and he has regularly trained with the Gunners’ senior squad during the 2024-25 campaign.
Dowman was ineligible to make his first-team debut this year as Premier League rules state that players are unable to feature in the senior squad until the campaign in which they turn 16.
However, Dowman will turn 16 in December, meaning he will be able to make his Arsenal first-team debut next season.
He will still be in school next year, which will impact his ability to attend senior training sessions, but The Mirror have revealed that Dowman will be included in Arsenal’s first-team squad in 2025-26.
The 15-year-old has scored 19 goals and provided five assists in 23 appearances for Arsenal’s youth sides so far this season, and he has been earmarked as a potential long-term replacement for Martin Odegaard at the Emirates Stadium.
If Dowman features during Arsenal’s opening fixture of the 2025-26 campaign, which is scheduled to take place on the weekend of 16 August, he will become the second-youngest player to ever feature in the Premier League - behind fellow Gunners youth star Ethan Nwaneri.
Mikel Arteta heaps praise on Max Dowman
Speaking about Dowman in early May, Arteta told reporters: “Now he is involved in the squad. He trains with us a lot. Does that mean he will play in the Premier League many games? I don’t know; depends how good he is and how impressive he is and how much he offers the team like Ethan [Nwaneri], like Myles [Lewis-Skelly], like any other player in the squad.
“Let’s see how this evolves but we certainly got a big, big talent there.
“I think he is in the right pathway and everybody in the academy has done an incredible job to consistently protect him, inspire him, challenge him, keep him always up and the levels that he could produce, and he is doing well.
“He is doing the right steps and taking it slowly. He will dictate how fast we go.”
Dowman featured in a behind-closed-door friendly for Arsenal in November, as exclusively revealed by FootballTransfers, and he is in line to become one of the club's youngest ever players next season.
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