George Lewis officially joins Arsenal

George Lewis has officially joined Arsenal.

The 20 year old winger spent two weeks on trial with the Gunners earlier this year and was very impressive. The North London club have been in talks with the free agent for the last few months and he will now link up with Steve Bould’s Under 23 side.

He was born in Rwanda and moved to Norway as a child where he joined the youth ranks at Tromso IL. The player signed his first professional contract with Norwegian second tier side Tromsdalen in 2017.

Lewis moved to Fram Lavrik, another second division side in Norway in 2019 and played for them until the end of last season after which he decided to take a break in order to secure a move to another European club.  During this time, he had trials at Ipswich and Bournemouth before being offered a one week trial at Arsenal. He impressed the coaches at Arsenal so much that they extended his trial for another week.

He is a versatile, right footed player and his favoured position is on the right side of the attack. He can, however, play in any of the front three positions. 

The player was interviewed by Arsenal after securing his move to North London. 

On how it feels to sign professional terms with Arsenal:

“No, it’s really an unbelievable feeling. It feels really good right now.” 

On his journey to becoming an Arsenal player: 

“Yeah, I started playing football when I was maybe five years old at my local club called Stakkevollan IF, then I played there until I was about 12, then we moved and me and my brother both changed teams, so we joined the other team Tromsdalen, where I went to play for the first team. But before that I was in another team called Tromsø, who were in the top division at that time, before I came back in 2017 and then I really stayed at Tromsdalen for two years until last year where I moved to Fram Lavrik to get more opportunities playing.” 

On what fans can expect from him:

“My playing style is very direct. I like to dribble a lot, I like to express myself on the field, so they can expect a show from me, yeah!”

On whether his friends and family support Arsenal:

“Yeah, all of my family are Arsenal fans. When I was growing up, I really looked up to players like Adebayor, he was a really big role model for me, as well as Thierry Henry, and yeah, just to mention some of them.”

On gaining first team experience in the second and third tiers of Norwegian football: 

“The difference with playing with men and against men is that it’s probably more physical and you have to be strong in the mind because obviously when you’re young you won’t come through, you won’t play every game, you will probably be on the bench, but you have to be strong mentally to get past that and get through that.”

On what he’s hoping to achieve with Arsenal:

“What I hope to achieve is, of course, to play for the first team at Arsenal and get as many appearances and goals and assists as possible!”