Brentford, United Kingdom (UK)- Ethan Nwaneri on Sunday became the English Premier League (EPL)’s the youngest player ever at 15 years, 5 months and 23 days.
Nwaneri broke the record previously held by Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott at 16 years, 30 days after he came on for Fabio Vieira in the 90th minute.
Earlier on, William Saliba, opened the scoring with a flicked, near-post header from Bukayo Saka’s corner in the 17th minute before Gabriel Jesus doubled Arsenal’s advantage with a similarly well-taken header from Granit Xhaka’s diagonal centre in the 28th minute.
Vieira then wrapped up the match in the 49th minute after rifling a long-range effort, giving Arsenal an emphatic 3 – 0 over Brentford which now sees them sitting at the summit of the EPL with 18 points from 7 games.
Arsenal’s last visit to Brentford ended in a dismal 2 – 0 defeat on the opening day of last season but on this occasion, they were totally dominant.
“I think we performed quite well, but if you want to win against a team that is flying, you can’t concede the first goal from a set-piece, you can’t concede the second one as we did.
You can see how they celebrated the first goal, in a huddle, so they had clearly spoken about how difficult a place it is to come here, and they showed us a lot of respect, which I am pleased with because it means we have done something good.
It was a well-deserved win for them. You can see how hard they worked. I think they will do brilliantly. I think they can compete for the title now,” said Brentford manager, Thomas Frank.
At the same time, Arsenal’s manager, Mikel Arteta, said he was really pleased with his side’s 3 – 0 away win against Brentford.
“The natural thing to do is to describe what happened here last year as a really bad day. The way I describe it is as a character-building day. A team has to evolve and go through those moments together. A team can give up, question everybody and blame other people, or it can look in the mirror, take the lesson and move forward. Today, obviously, you have seen a very different team.
This is what we wanted. We talked before the game that we had the opportunity to get back to the top. Yesterday, they took it away from us, but we wanted it back. We had to show that desire from the first minute and we have done it,” said Arteta.
