Myles Lewis-Skelly, the whirlwind continues

New York Times

4 hours ago

Here we are, in the summer of 2025, and for anyone unfamiliar with Arsenal's squad, if you head to the club's website and click on the page for the first team, there is no sign yet of a player who was a remarkable asset for much of last season. He excelled so much he made a position his own in both Premier League and Champions League, seized the moment on his full international debut, and is a convincing nominee for PFA Young Player of the Year.
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Myles Lewis-Skelly is still (at the time of his new contract being announced at 12pm on Thursday) listed on the club's separate academy page, where he hangs out with a fair few names only known to the most avid Arsenal supporters who relish talent spotting the next generation nice and early. There he is at No 49. No 39 is Harrison Dudziak. No 59 is Elian Quesada-Thorn.
It's a sign of the whirlwind few months that launched Lewis-Skelly away from that group that securing a new contract became a matter of urgency for Arsenal.
It is required both to ward off other clubs and to reward his exceptional development and impressive importance. He has been at Arsenal since the age of eight, and is a shining light for Hale End. For a while every boy coming through the academy has looked up to Bukayo Saka as the ultimate modern example. Now they have someone who epitomises the possibility of progression who was, until only a few months ago, still spending time in development.
Now, he is fully developed.
There is some fine tuning to do to his game, which even the finest and most experienced players regard as a constant element of striving to be the best they can. But overall, his play was broadly exceptional since he first poked his head through the first-team environment and strolled right in, ready to take on every challenge, hold off every competitor, and make it known he loves representing the badge.
Quite how he has processed this sudden elevation this summer is worthy of consideration. He has barely had a moment to pause and take it all in since making his debut at Manchester City, a few moments after picking up a booking before he even came on — cult hero stuff from the get-go.
The next chapter 📖
Myles Lewis-Skelly has signed a new long-term deal at the club 👇
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) June 26, 2025
It is not often someone plays in an under-21 club game at Wolves and a Champions League quarter-final at the Bernabeu in the same season. It is not often someone plays in an England Under-19 game and a World Cup qualifier in the same season.
Luckily he has a clued-up and supportive family around him, a strong support network, and is by nature a smart thinker about the profession he is in and how to look after himself physically and psychologically.
Like most top professionals he has had a truncated summer holiday, and is now on the trajectory where he will be expected to live a high-performance life with very little break.
He played up until England's friendly with Senegal on June 10, and will be joining the Arsenal squad for pre-season in early July. Assuming his season ahead goes to plan he will be heavily involved for club and country right into the World Cup next summer, and will then before he knows it, be back into the hurly burly of the Premier League season 2026-2027. All that while still a teenager.
He has been a magnet for attention since he appeared on the scene — some of it for the incredibly mature quality of his football and some for external perceptions about his character which were skewed and reinforced by media soundbites and a weird negativity campaign that does not sit right about an 18-year-old footballer. He has personality and is not afraid to show it. But in our contemporary world of strong opinions first, nuance later (if you are lucky), it is easy to become a target in a heartbeat.
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This promises to be an interesting season for Lewis-Skelly. The novelty of the cascading new experiences last season kept coming — first-team debut in the Carabao Cup, first appearance in the Premier League, first start, first goal, first taste of Champions League, first north London derby, first red card, first overturned red card, first experience against the likes of Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain in major knock-out games, first England cap, first international goal… it was a lot packed into a short space of time.
Lewis-Skelly is about to enter his first full season as a fully fledged professional playing at the highest level. It feels like he has been around plenty of blocks already. Now he has to do it all again and keep doing it. Consistency of performance, maturity of expression, maintaining his form, fitness and focus.
He has his great friend Ethan Nwaneri (who also began this summer still listed under the academy by Arsenal). But there is no getting away from the fact that a year ago, not even a confident and ambitious Lewis-Skelly could have predicted the way his career would suddenly lurch into first team overdrive.
Arsenal's No 49 got that number by chance, as shirt numbers given to academy players tend not to have special relevance. But he is aware of the significance of that number in the club's folklore, as the '49 undefeated' record synonymous with the Invincibles. So while Nwaneri has switched to 22 for the season ahead, Lewis-Skelly has decided to keep it. For such a loved product of Hale End, making such strides at his boyhood club, being part of the club's history has a nice ring to it.