There might have been a time when Mikel Arteta, as the Arsenal manager and chief spokesman of the club, would have attempted to play down the hype around Max Dowman. The Arsenal academy player is still only 15, after all, and it cannot be easy to manage the growing excitement that surrounds him.

Since the turn of the year, though, Arteta and Arsenal have evidently realised there is no point in trying to mask the reality of Dowman’s ability. And so, rather than deflecting questions about the young attacker in the second half of last season, Arteta effectively began to invite them instead.

“We have Max coming up very soon,” said Arteta in May when asked a general question about the attacking midfield position. A few weeks later, asked about which academy players could make an impact next season, Arteta again mentioned Dowman. “I think Max probably will be in and around the pre-season,” he said.

To join the first-team squad is a significant step for any teenager, let alone one who is still a year away from taking his GCSEs, but Arsenal are convinced that Dowman is ready for such a test. He was part of the group that travelled to Spain for a training camp last week, and he is currently on the club’s tour of Singapore and Hong Kong.

Dowman featured as a substitute in Arsenal’s opening game of the tour, a 1-0 victory over AC Milan. Coming on at right wing after 65 minutes, he almost scored with a fizzed low strike a few moments later. He looked sharp, and comfortable in his surroundings, whenever he had possession. Dowman even took Arsenal’s sixth penalty in a pre-arranged shoot-out, which he scored with confidence.

It will have helped Dowman’s cause that the first-team environment has become a relatively familiar one to him over the past few months. He regularly trained with the senior stars last season, and was part of the club’s warm-weather training camp in Dubai in February.

If it were not for Premier League rules, which prevent a player from the under-16 age group playing a senior game, he might well have been involved in a match-day squad last season.

It speaks volumes for Dowman’s potential that the first-team players, who have watched him up close in training, share the excitement of the club’s supporters who have seen his clips online. “He is unreal,” said Declan Rice in March. Rice also described Dowman as “the best 15-year-old in the country”, while Arteta has said: “Some of the things he does in training are unbelievable”.

What makes Dowman, a left-footed attacking midfielder who first joined the club at the age of eight, such a thrilling prospect? One way of answering that question is to look at his extraordinary CV, which indicates just how advanced he is for a 15-year-old.

The statistics paint a vivid picture of Dowman’s talent. He was only 13 when he became the youngest player to represent Arsenal’s under-18s, for example, and was only 14 when he first featured for the under-21s, again setting a new record. In September last year, he became the youngest player to ever score in the Uefa Youth League.

For England, too, Dowman has been far ahead of the curve. He first played and scored for England’s under-17s when he was 14. At this summer’s under-17 European Championship, he was the youngest player at the entire tournament but started all three of England’s matches, scoring a fabulous individual goal against the Czech Republic.

For many Arsenal supporters, it was the FA Youth Cup quarter-final against Manchester United in February that provided the first moment of realisation. Playing at Emirates Stadium in an under-18 team, Dowman was clearly on a different level to every other player on the pitch. For much of the game, the United players simply resorted to kicking him from behind.

Dowman’s ability to weave beyond opponents, manipulating the ball at top speed, is perhaps his most eye-catching attribute. Highlights from Arsenal’s academy games often feature clips of the teenager swerving past defenders and creating shooting opportunities, either for himself or a team-mate. In one game against Leicester City in April, he scored after dribbling from the halfway line – twice.

Max Dowman scored two sensational solo goals after receiving the ball from the halfway line in his hat-trick vs Leicester U18s. What a talent! #AFC pic.twitter.com/ypQJzmZsit

— Hale End Watch (@HaleEndYouth) April 6, 2025

Telegraph Sport first watched Dowman in the flesh in October last year, in a Uefa Youth League match against Paris St-Germain. His first act as a substitute was to spin past the PSG left-back and win a free-kick. His second act, a few seconds later, was to do it again.

It has been clear for some time that Dowman, who also possesses an excellent passing range and a powerful shot with both feet, is now too advanced for under-18 level. The age-related restrictions meant he had to stay there last season and he routinely tore opposition teams apart, often while wearing the captain’s armband. In his final seven appearances in the under-18s last season, Dowman scored 14 goals.

Arsenal and Dowman will know, though, that none of this success at youth level provides any assurances of a long and successful career in football. Talented youngsters face all sorts of challenges and difficult questions at this stage of their lives, and Arsenal have a responsibility to protect the human being while also trying to develop the footballer. The intensity of the spotlight on Dowman does not make that any easier.

Rice articulated it nicely in March, when he was so full of praise for his young team-mate. “I speak to Max a lot and he has got such a good family around him,” he said. “At 15, there is such a long way to go. You can be the best 15-year-old in the country, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to be at 18. So you need to be hungry, keep working and keep pushing.”

Arsenal, and Arteta, will hope to provide the platform that allows Dowman to do just that and, they hope, to one day fulfil his enormous potential.