With David Raya sidelined due to a knee injury, Arsenal will start 16-year-old custodian Jack Porter against Bolton Wanderers on Wednesday night in the Carabao Cup.
When the League One team comes to town, Mikel Arteta will have a difficult time since Neto, the Brazilian backup custodian, is cup-tied. Neto played for Bournemouth in the last round of the competition before signing a loan to Arsenal.
Porter, who made a significant impression on the Spanish manager during first-team practice, will start in goal for Arteta at the Emirates since the 18-year-old keeper Tommy Setford is also sidelined due to injury.
Porter’s handling, demeanour, and even his ball abilities have pleased Arteta, according to the source. Arteta was already named on the substitutes bench when Arsenal flew to Atalanta this month in the Champions League.
It continues, saying that Raya’s knee injury is minimal and shouldn’t prevent him from playing in Arsenal’s upcoming match against Leicester City this weekend, thus Arteta won’t be reliant on Porter for games to come.
Porter, though, will have a fantastic chance to build on his remarkable background, which includes earning caps for the England U17s and signing scholarship terms with Arsenal this summer. In July, he only turned sixteen.
“Dream come true, delighted to sign for this amazing football club with such great history, would like to thank everyone who’s supported me throughout the years,” he wrote on social media after announcing his deal with Arsenal this summer. Work is never done.
Porter is one of several young players who will have an opportunity to play against Bolton; highly-regarded players like Ethan Nwaneri and Mules Lewis-Skelly are also expected to play.
The announcement comes after worries over Raya, who has emerged as Arsenal’s most impressive player this year with a run of amazing saves, the most recent of which was a masterful double stop against Atalanta to enable the team to a 0-0 draw.
We have two guys in this position, which is fortunate for us. In practically every other position, we have two players, but we have three or four goalkeepers, and our third player is also a very excellent goalkeeper. Thus, it is advantageous to us.
We need to have a strong squad because, as you saw, injuries can happen to anyone. Therefore, it was encouraging to see that he maintained a clean sheet of work—not that he was idle, but rather that he had to act occasionally and did so rather skilfully.