Mikel Arteta hails Max Dowman’s ‘special’ history-making performance for Arsenal

By Philip Duncan, PA

Mikel Arteta lauded Max Dowman’s “special” performance as the 15-year-old rewrote history by becoming Arsenal’s youngest-ever starter in his side’s Carabao Cup victory against Brighton.

Ethan Nwaneri and Bukayo Saka – who replaced Dowman with 20 minutes remaining – struck in the second half as Arsenal secured a 2-0 win at the Emirates to book their place in the fifth round and a home tie against Crystal Palace.

But it was Dowman, still two months and two days shy of his 16th birthday, who stole the show and was afforded a standing ovation as he departed the pitch.

“A tiny smile, that’s what you get with him,” said Arteta when asked how Dowman reacted when he told him he was starting.

“For him everything is natural, for him everything is OK. It’s the way he plays and that’s the secret, that he doesn’t make a big fuss of it.

“He just does what he does best, which is to play football. To play football with a lot of courage and determination and today again, he has shown some incredible skill, some capacity to run past players at that level in the Premier League at 15. It’s definitely something special.”

Asked if the highly-rated teenager – who previously came off the bench in the league against Leeds and Liverpool and the last round of this competition at Port Vale – would now be desperate for more starts, Arteta added: “For sure, if you ask him.

“That’s what we have to manage and not only that, there’s a lot of things that are new in his life.

“We have to make sure that he takes the right steps and he needs be able to cope with it, too, because it’s happening very, very fast and we all need to be aware of that.

“Let’s encourage him to keep going that way, but let’s protect him as well.”

Dowman was among 10 changes made by Arteta with only Eberechi Eze keeping his place from the side which saw off Crystal Palace to move four points clear in the Premier League on Sunday.

Brighton had chances to score but Arsenal kept the visitors at bay as Arteta’s men recorded their eighth win on the bounce and sixth clean sheet in a row.

Their defence has been breached just three times in 14 matches across all competitions so far.

Arteta added: “We were struggling in the first half. I expected that when you make 10 changes and you have players that have never played before and some of them haven’t played much this season.

“You have to gamble. But I was ready to take that risk and in the second half, we needed to start in a different way and we certainly did that and the game shifted momentum.”

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Frustrated Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler rued his side’s failure to convert any of their six shots on Arsenal’s goal.

He said: “When we take all the chances, we are in the next round. It is about scoring and defending and we were not able to score or defend the most important actions.

“The goal from Arsenal changed the game and it is not easy to score goals here as we all know.”