Manchester United’s Class of ’92 side are often referred to as the greatest youth side of all time, with David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Phil Neville the key players to make the grade at Old Trafford from that team.
Martin Keown, though, believes that the Arsenal youth team he was a part of doesn’t get spoken about nearly enough.
Though they failed to reach an FA Youth Cup final, let alone dominate one like the Manchester United youngsters did in 1991/92, a number of players from that Arsenal youth side went on to have successful careers in the Gunners’ first team. For Keown, they’d have certainly held their own in a hypothetical match against the Class of ’92.
Martin Keown highlights quality of his 1983 Arsenal youth side
“We would give them more than a good game, that’s for sure,” Keown tells FourFourTwo. “It’s a scandal that youth team at Arsenal isn’t talked about enough, if at all.
“I once heard Arsene Wenger say Arsenal needed to emulate Manchester United’s Class of ’92. It was very rare of the boss to show a lack of knowledge, but that showed how overlooked our youth team was, even within our club – close to 5,000 games between us, six internationals and copious amounts of league titles.
“Tony Adams, Niall Quinn, David Rocastle, Michael Thomas, myself, Paul Merson, Martin Hayes, who was the club’s leading scorer [in 1986-87]… just a great bunch of players.”
Though Keown had to move away from Arsenal for regular first team football, with spells at Aston Villa and Everton, he later returned to Highbury to kick on in the first team. It wasn’t until the arrival of Wenger when he truly realised the impact the Frenchman would have on the club.
“Arsene Wenger was my footballing father and it took hardly any time at all to realise he was different,” Keown says. “Soon after arriving, he arranged a 15-minute chat with every player. When I sat down with him, he did something that not many managers had done with me: he made me feel special.
“He told me that he had seen me play a lot, at the back and in midfield, and he’d watched videos of me from over the last 18 months, and all I needed to do was play exactly the same way and I would 100 per cent be in his team.
“He went on to say I needed to speak to [vice-chairman] David Dein as the club weren’t paying me anywhere near enough. I felt appreciated and wanted. Together, we never looked back.”
