Cohen Bramall makes Arsenal debut

Last week, Arsenal made news by signing Cohen Bramall, who had recently been laid off from his job at Bentley Motors, building cars he could never really dream of affording, and who was playing his football at Hednesford Town, which is totally not a made up town name, who play in the Northern Premier League’s Premier Division, which is also totally not made up.

Bramall had trials at a few clubs, but when Arsenal rang his doorbell, he went to north London and trialed there, and impressed Le Boss (or his Le Representatives) enough to offer Cohen a contract to play in Arsenal’s setup. With the stroke of a pen, Bramall went from building Bentleys to probably being able to buy one here soon - his wages went from £400 a week at the factory to £3,000ish a week at Arsenal, so at the very least he could probably get a top of the range Fiat or Mini or something. Anyway.

Bramall’s story is a pretty great one, and it started its next chapter today with him playing for Arsenal U-23s against Southampton. We’re still digging for real news on how he performed, but he played 83 minutes in Arsenal’s 3-1 win. Just the fact that he played at all is a huge step for him and I hope it’s the first of many steps he takes towards the Arsenal first team.

EDIT 2:05 PM PT: Our own fbj0 watched Bramall’s debut (it was streaming on the Southampton website) and had this to say (lightly edited to make it sound less like the slack chat that it was):

“He wasn't heavily involved; he was decent early, but made a bad easy pass and let it get to him a bit too much. He was just one of the guys as they kinda overwhelmed us the last 15 mins of the half. He had a couple nice moments in the second half, making runs down the flank. All in all, a solid debut. He came off after 83 mins.

(He) looked like he belonged with the guys playing, which is more than you can say about a lot of the fullbacks arsenal's youth sides have thrown out there.”