Daniel Crowley loaned to Oxford United

The phrase “promising young player” is used around Arsenal a whole lot, particularly in recent seasons. This past season, Promising Young Player Daniel Crowley was loaned out to League One side Barnsley for three months, where he played fairly regularly (13 appearances) and generally impressed.

Impressed enough, in fact, to attract the attention of Oxford United, who today agreed to borrow the 18 year old Crowley for the 2016/17 season - what? if you’re not the loaner, you’re the borrower, right? - which is good news for the young man as he works to improve enough to force his way into Arsene Wenger’s thought process in the senior team.

Only problem with that is, being loaned to a League One side or its European equivalent is generally not a route to getting into Arsenal’s first eleven. As our own fbj0 discovered last season, Arsenal’s recent record of loaning young players does not really result in a massive swell of returned loanees playing for Arsenal - of the 24 players he lists as having been loaned out in recent years, only four have made regular appearances in Arsenal’s first team - and one of those was Carlos Vela.

So, while this is unquestionably good for Crowley’s career, whether it’s good for Crowley’s Arsenal future has yet to be seen. Still, we wish Dan all the best of luck and hope he has a tremendous experience at Oxford United, however it ends up playing out in the future.