Ethan Nwaneri is catching a record set by Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney (Image: Getty)
boss will be fully aware that he has a sensational talent on his hands in Ethan Nwaneri. But the scale of his output, relative to the wonderkids who came before him, highlights just how good he could turn out to be.
and were two of the most revered young prospects in English football history. Rooney was an regular at 16 and made the move to at 18 after starring for the Three Lions as a teenager at Euro 2004.
Owen also enjoyed the major tournament spotlight at the age of 18, with his 1998 World Cup campaign still fondly remembered by supporters.
But even that pair – two of the benchmarks for top young talents coming through in the modern game – cannot compete with the rate at which Nwaneri is finding the net.
Still six weeks shy of his 18th birthday, Nwaneri has scored seven goals in 714 minutes of first-team action, with all of them coming this season. He needs two more to equal the record jointly set by Owen and Rooney, who each scored nine goals for a Premier League side while aged 17 or younger.
But it is the rate at which Nwaneri is scoring which is particularly impressive. His ratio of a goal every 102 minutes wipes the floor with Rooney’s pre-18 average of 232 minutes, and easily trumps Owen’s average of 192 minutes.
Ethan Nwaneri has become a valuable first-team player for Mikel Arteta (Image: Getty)
And that is despite the fact Owen and Rooney were both out-and-out centre-forwards, while Nwaneri has played primarily out wide or in attacking midfield. The Enfield-born star, who has also been piling in the goals for England at youth level, would pip the pair’s record with three goals in the seven games scheduled to be played before his birthday on March 21.
Nwaneri became the youngest Premier League player in history when he came off the bench at Brentford in 2022, aged 15 years and 181 days.
He had to wait patiently for further opportunities, but those that came his way have been grabbed with both hands. Nwaneri scored superb goals against Girona and last week, and made an impact off the bench in the defeat at United in the Carabao Cup.
With Gabriel Jesus, and Gabriel Martinelli all injured, further chances to shine are increasingly likely as he chases the marker laid down by Rooney and Owen.