Exclusive: Miguel Azeez chats to Gooner Talk about his first-team ambitions

Arsenal’s academy were penned in to play two pre-season friendlies across the space of twelve hours, one being played against Borehamwood and featuring the Arsenal U23s and the other being played against Hitchin Town FC in a rearranged friendly that was due to be against Crewe Alexandra FC but cancelled because of a couple of positive COVID-19 tests in amongst the pre-season camp of Arsenal’s initially intended opposition.

On Friday night at Meadow Park, it finished with Borehamwood’s first team convinced beating an Arsenal academy group going through some changes after Kevin Betsy had limited time to prepare his Arsenal U23s for his first game in charge of The Arsenal.

After the full-time whistle, Gooner Talk got exclusive access to talk to Miguel Azeez despite a four-goal-defeat.

Here is a transcript of what the Arsenal midfielder said, word for word:

How did you find it out there tonight? Defeat, but what did you make of the game?

It was a tough game against the men’s team so it was about us learning how to play against [senior] players. Taking experience from these games is important as it is still pre-season so we have to keep building and progressing as a team.

How are you feeling about your own fitness going into tonight’s game and ahead of the new season?

I am always confident going into games. I want to try and be the best player in every game I play and I feel like I have had good training going into this game. I feel like if you prepare well then you play well in the game so as I said it is still pre-season so there are still minutes in the legs you need to get but I feel really fit, healthy and strong.

Last season was a struggle for the U23s with the change of management mid-season as well and obviously with your new coach coming in from the national squad as well, it is early days but how are you finding it?

We need to learn from last season and take our learnings from last season into the [upcoming] season. Going into the new season we have a new manager as you said so he will come in with fresh ideas, new beginning and I am looking forward to the new season we need to just build from this and make sure we finish a couple of positions [higher] next season and maybe even try and win the league.

Finally, what do you make of the Arsenal first-team and your chances getting into the first-team this season especially in the Carabao Cup and FA Cup opening rounds?

Yeah of course, I take any opportunity I get and when I get that opportunity I make sure to give the best account of myself. I am just hoping for a lot of opportunities and I am going to keep working hard in training, make sure I am listening to the manager and what he wants me to do and just keep making myself better as a player physically, technically, tactically…all round and yeah hopefully I get more opportunities this season.