Emile Smith Rowe only played 26 minutes in the 2018/2019 season on his loan station at RB Leipzig. Nevertheless, the Red Bulls tried to keep him – in vain. A good two years later, the 21-year-old attacking player is one of the big promises in English football, top scorer at Arsenal – and now also a national player.
“We have already stated that we are interested in another loan,” said the then Leipzig coach and sports director Ralf Rangnick Image im May 2019. It was about Emile Smith Rowe, the then 18-year-old loaner from Arsenal FC, who had only played a minute for Saxony.
By the end of the six-month loan, the attacking midfielder only added 25 more minutes – which, however, was primarily not for sporting reasons. If Smith Rowe failed almost completely with groin problems in the preliminary round 18/19, this injury continued to plague him in Leipzig. It took until the middle of April for the one-minute operation against Wolfsburg, even after that he was not free of symptoms.
But the fact that RB secured the youngster in winter for a rental fee of at least one million euros and was still interested in working together despite the disappointing half-year – ideally even with an option to buy – had its reasons. Because the Englishman has shown how good he actually is, especially in the last few months. As a reward for his good performance at Arsenal, Smith Rowe has now been nominated for the first time for the Three Lions.
Since he was nine, Smith Rowe had been through all of the Gunners’ youth teams, and before that, he had also completed a trial training session with the blue neighbor of Chelsea, without success. “I was small, very thin and was always pushed away. I wasn’t involved in the game and I didn’t touch the ball enough,” he said at ESPN about the reasons for failure.
While Smith Rowe, who can be used variably on the offensive, has always been a gifted footballer, there were other areas that inhibited him both at a very young age and before his final breakthrough at Arsenal after he returned from Leipzig.
Smith Rowe: Too Much Chocolate and Fast Food Love
The quick decision in favor of Smith Rowe among those responsible was probably also due to the fact that with fifth place in the league the qualification for the Champions League was missed and therefore millions of euros were lost. With plenty of playing time with the professionals, however, it didn’t work out for the time being.
In addition to three games in the Europa League and two in the Premier League, the Londoner worked his way back in shape in the championship via a loan to Huddersfield. At first he was out again for months. In retrospect, Smith Rowe also sees a starting point for this in his behavior away from the field.
He had “not eaten so well” and “not drunk so much” for a long time, as he recently did Guardian reported that too often he had gone to the chocolate and the fast food restaurant Nando’s devoted and was “too lazy”. However, he does not want to blame the club, which is “very strict” in this regard. “But I didn’t really listen to it, to be honest.” The club has long since equipped him with a personal cook who takes care of him every day in his own four walls.
And possibly the fact that his starting eleven debut under manager Mikel Arteta on Boxing Day 2020 against Chelsea (3: 1, one template) was a ghost game also helped him. “That was definitely an advantage for me. I’m always very nervous before games. And not having the pressure to have everyone call in has helped me a lot.”
After good performances in the preseason (20 league games, two goals, four assists), Smith Rowe was already on everyone’s lips, West Ham United is said to be around 35 million euros The Athletic have offered in the summer. But his future lies with the Gunners, who equipped the home-grown house with a new contract (duration unknown) in July. In this context, he was also given the number 10 on his back, which Mesut Özil had previously worn.
Arsenal key player Smith Rowe: new contract and number 10
When the contract was extended, Arteta already described his protégé as a “key player” with a high level of game intelligence and a great willingness to learn. He has finally proven this in the past few months at the latest. He has been on the pitch in every Premier League game, with one exception always in the starting XI.
He oscillates between the position in the central attacking midfield and the one on the left flank. Most recently he acted there three times in a row and can only see positive things from his role in 4-4-2. “I feel like it’s always good for me to play on the left because I can do half the turn there and dribble forward,” he said Sky and generally spoke of a “pleasure” to be able to play at all.
Arsenal have fought their way up to fifth in the league after a weak start – also thanks to Smith Rowe, who scored the golden goal in the win against newly promoted Watford last weekend. With 893 minutes in the season so far, Smith Rowe is one of the most frequent players on the island across all clubs – and now there is even an additional burden on him: For the first time he was nominated by national coach Gareth Southgate for the upcoming international matches against Albania and San Marino, after he had only played for the junior teams so far.
The praise from all sides is huge, after a 3-0 win against Aston Villla in October, in which Smith Rowe contributed a goal and an assist, TV expert Jamie Carragher even described him as “the best player in the Premier League in dribbling with the ball “and continued:” Sometimes players just show up and you can’t help but like them – I like this boy a lot. “
Smith Rowe has already experienced a few ups and downs in his young career, the signs are currently clearly in the right direction – and he can now also gain something from his loan to RB Leipzig. “It was tough, but it definitely helped me become a man.”
