Alfie Matthews is an Eagle after 11 years in Arsenal’s Academy, culminating in the forward now being able to showcase a WhatsApp profile picture of him and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in training together.
“It was unbelievable,” Matthews excitedly says at our reference to his profile photo. “I’d trained with the first-team squad before but that was with the rest of my squad, too.
“This time, though, they just wanted an attacking player. I had played 90 minutes for the Under-23s against West Ham United, and then was told I needed to go over for 15 minutes with the first-team…90 minutes later I was having a laugh with them and they were calling me by my name.