Arsenal of England youngster, Folarin Balogun has gained a reel out of plaudits from football buffs, despite his inability to save The Gunners from defeat in the Carabao League Cup, megasportsarena.com reports.
In contrast with more woes now pilling on Arsenal coach, Mikel Arteta, Balogun has found a lot of personal and individual praise coming his way, after The Gunners bowed out of the Carabao Cup at the quarter-final stage, following a 4-1 loss to Manchester City.
Balogun did get to play Tuesday’s game at Emirates Stadium against The Citizens, who were winners of the competition for the last three seasons, but the Nigerian-born lad could not stop Gabriel Jesus making hay very early on before Alexandre Lacazette equalised just past the half-hour.
Riyad Mahrez’s free-kick was fluffed by goalkeeper Runar Alex Runarsson to put City 2-1 up in the 55th minute, after which Phil Foden scored three minutes later and Aymeric Laporte then wrapped up scoring with 17 minutes remaining.
Arteta then sent Balogun on to replace Lacazette in the 77th minute, thereby according the teenager his first appearance for Arsenal in any domestic competition and adding to his previous four appearances off the bench in this season’s UEFA Europa League.
However, Balogun could not make any impact because he was starved of service and in the closing minutes Nicolas Pepe wasted a chance to reduce the deficit when he opted to shoot instead of passing to the Nigerian-born youngster, who was in a better position to score.
Balogun will now aim for better opportunities and more playing time, as Arsenal aim to end their long, poor run of form and chain of seven matches without victory when they host London rivals, Chelsea in the English Premier League this Saturday, Boxing Day.
Ahead of that fixture, Balogun has gained fresh applause from Arsenal’s captain, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who noted that the lad born in USA has been exciting to watch in the Europa League, in which he has scored two goals and provided an assist in less than 62 minutes of action.
The youngster actualized his dream of making his professional debut for his boyhood club when Arteta sent him on for the last sixteen minutes of the 3-0 rout of Dundalk on October 29, which drew rave reviews from many pundits and a rain of accolades led by Aubameyang.
Aubameyang told Arsenal’s Matchday Programme: “I’ve spoken about how talented I think Flo Balogun is, so I’m not even surprised to see him scoring in the Europa League as he has been doing.
“I am so happy for him because when you are young, your dream is first of all to play with the first team. Once you have done that you want to start scoring, and he has already done that in a Europa League game.
“It’s always something special when you get your first goal with a professional team. I’m really happy for him and hopefully he’s going to score more goals for the club.”
