Arsenal to Sell Frustrated ‘Next Jack Wilshere’ as Star Spurs Exit
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Charlie Patino celebrates with Mikel Arteta after his Arsenal debut. (Image: Getty)
Arsenal are reportedly set to sell 20-year-old midfielder Charlie Patino on a permanent transfer, despite dazzling as a youngster in the Gunners’ academy. He has spent the season on loan at Championship side Swansea but struggled to reproduce the ability that saw Patino widely compared to club hero Jack Wilshere.
Patino was highly rated in the Arsenal youth teams and had been tipped to be the next star breaking into the first team after Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson made the same jump. After a promising loan at Blackpool, Patino was sent to South Wales to continue his development. After a bright start, he struggled to keep up with the physicality of the Championship and has not started a league match since January 1, with boss Luke Williams preferring the likes of Matt Grimes, Jay Fulton, and Joe Allen instead. The London Evening Standard claim that Arsenal are prepared to cut ties with Patino permanently after he has been frustrated with a lack of possibilities since scoring on his debut against Sunderland in the 2021 Carabao Cup quarter-final.
Patino holds a Spanish passport through his father and boosts his chances of landing a new club in La Liga, despite holding out hope just a few months ago that he would return to Arsenal at the end of the season and push for a place in the first team and live up to his bill by fans and media as the ‘next Wilshere’. “Of all the years I’ve been scouting, he’s the best kid I’ve ever seen,” said Stapleton, who also discovered Wilshere for Arsenal, to Goal. “I got a tip-off about Charlie from a guy, so I went over there and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He was 11 and I think he was playing in the under-13s, and I was like ‘wow’.
“His first touch was unbelievable, his vision, his awareness of space. He was way above his years, he was on another planet to anyone else on the pitch. I made a phone call to my head of my department at Arsenal at the time, Sean O’Connor. He asked what I thought and I said: ‘Well, I’m not coming back again.
Charlie Patino in action for Swansea in their 3-0 win over Stoke. (Image: Getty)
“It’s inspiring to see someone from Arsenal being able to go on loan, make a name for himself and come back and show his qualities at Arsenal because it is a massive club,” Patino told the Daily Mail in October. “Everyone’s journey is different. Bukayo Saka went straight from academy to first team, Eddie Nketiah went on a few loans, Emile Smith Rowe went on a few loans, so everyone’s journey is different.
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Charlie Patino had been likened to Arsenal hero Jack Wilshere.
(Image: Getty)
