'In both cases': Fabrizio Romano shares how Arsenal are feeling internally now about Chido Obi and Ayden Heaven

18/02/2025 22:15

Arsenal lost both Chido Obi and Ayden Heaven to Manchester United in the space of a few months.

The Gunners have produced a few incredible young players through their academy over the years. They have had great success – either by nurturing some of them as kids or signing them early from other clubs.

Heaven and Chido Obi joined Arsenal from West Ham United and Copenhagen’s youth setups in 2019 and 2022 respectively.

Arsenal developed both of them into huge talents, but unfortunately for them, Heaven and Chido decided to choose Manchester United instead of committing their futures to the Gunners.

Fabrizio Romano shares how Arsenal feel about Chido Obi and Ayden Heaven

Arsenal have lost quite a few young players in recent years.

Omari Hutchinson left them for Chelsea, Lino Sousa joined Aston Villa, Amario Cozier-Duberry moved to Brighton and Hove Albion and Reuell Walters jumped ship to Luton Town.

All of the above players, at one point or another, were viewed as future first-team stars by those who watched them at Arsenal, but they moved on.

That was frustrating for Arsenal fans, and that frustration increased when Chido and Heaven left them for one of their biggest rivals, Manchester United, in the space of a few months.

Chido made his senior Red Devils debut in the game against Tottenham, while Heaven has been on Ruben Amorim’s bench in each of United’s last two games.

One would imagine that Arsenal must be kicking themselves right now, but Fabrizio Romano has revealed that nobody at the Emirates is losing any sleep over the two players – even though there was some disappointment when they first left.

He wrote on GiveMeSport: “Meanwhile, Arsenal also felt disappointed when both Chido Obi in the summer and Ayden Heaven in January decided to leave the project to join Manchester United, as in both cases Arsenal tried to keep them and offered important contracts.

“But, no one is losing sleep as the management made all efforts possible to reach an agreement and can't force players to stay. At the end of the day, Arsenal are producing top talents and Mikel Arteta is trusting them for the long term. This is the way, like with Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly.”

Why Arsenal were ‘comfortable’ to allow Ayden Heaven to join Manchester United

Arsenal wanted to retain both Chido and Heaven’s services – why wouldn’t they?! They are both excellent talents.

However, the Gunners were far more ‘comfortable’ letting the defender leave the club than the Danish striker for one key reason.

The Telegraph reveal that Heaven was ‘a long way off’ the senior side because the likes of William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Ben White, Riccardo Calafiori and Jurrien Timber among others were all ahead of him in the pecking order.

Heaven could well go on to have a great career at Manchester United, but it made no sense for Arsenal to go above and beyond to retain his services.

That’s why they weren’t too upset when he decided to leave them for the Red Devils.