No act is more certain to rouse a home derby crowd than a full-blooded tackle. Six minutes before the break, with Arsenal trailing Tottenham Hotspur by a goal on Wednesday night, the Emirates had one upon which to seize.
Pape Matar Sarr overran the ball and made the mistake of doing it in the vicinity of the grizzly 18-year-old veteran that is Myles Lewis-Skelly.
As the 50-50 challenge arrived, the teenager braced for impact, planting both feet and thrusting his entire body weight into the block tackle. The force saw him carry his Senegalese opponent on his back before he shook him off and drove 50 yards up the pitch to win the corner which led to Arsenal’s equaliser.
It was not the prettiest clip on Lewis-Skelly’s highlights reel, but it was effective and exemplified how he has embraced the physicality of Premier League football.
“I had to put on a show for my grandma (in the stand), make sure I didn’t look soft in front of her and win my tackles,” Lewis-Skelly told former Arsenal striker Ian Wright on Optus Sport.
Lewis-Skelly talks with Wright after the game (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
His manager Mikel Arteta said he was “phenomenal” and his goalkeeper David Raya said he showed “balls” in the 2-1 win.
Neither Gabriel beside him in defence nor the player in front of him, Declan Rice — who would usually be charged with protecting a teenager making only his fourth Premier League start — had to babysit the youngster for a single moment.
‘The young boy Myles again is just unbelievable; for 18 what he showed tonight is just ridiculous,” Rice told TNT Sports.
“It’s scary. The 18-year-olds now have got no fear — no fear whatsoever. I think there were four or five times in the second half, he’s got that Moussa Dembele trait; he uses his body to get away from stuff. Sometimes, yeah, it’s risky but to show that at 18 and the personality and character, honestly, it’s unbelievable.”
It is startling that his first Premier League start came just 33 days ago, but in that time he has fused defensive solidity, tactical understanding and small-space dribbling ability that defies that inexperience.
Rice highlighted Lewis-Skelly’s biggest attribute: his ability to draw pressure and ride tackles in a style reminiscent of the former Belgium international Dembele, a former Tottenham player.
One of Lewis-Skelly’s best moments against Tottenham came in the third minute when he read a pass down the line to Dejan Kulusevski.
He held off until the ball was played and then pounced, stepping in front of the Swede and driving forward with the ball. As he cut infield he had three team-mates bursting forward to his left, and many players might have been tempted to force a pass through to them. But he remained calm and waited for space to open up.
As Radu Dragusin tried to close him down, Lewis-Skelly showed why Rice sees shades of Dembele in how he protects the ball. Out came the left arm, maintaining distance from the Romanian, buying him time to look up and play a slide rule pass to Raheem Sterling, who did not seem to anticipate the ball early enough.
Kulusevski has had an impressive individual season and one of his best attributes is how he uses his size, at 6ft 1in, to keep the ball under pressure.
Yet at 5ft 8in, Lewis-Skelly was able to repeatedly beat him in physical duels, counter-pressing in the first half to rob him as he tried to turn and, in the second half, producing a terrific recovery run to turn defence into attack.
Once he had won the ball back, he went into what is becoming his trademark position: a wide stance and knees bent, hunched over the ball and using his arms to prevent Kulusevski from getting around his side.
The power comes from his legs — the base of athleticism that Arsenal build for years at their Hale End complex to ensure their academy graduates are physically mature enough at 16 to be able to handle the step up to first-team football.
It is a big reason why Bukayo Saka was able to transition so successfully and play over 250 games for the club before he endured his first extended injury lay-off.
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Arteta’s trust in Lewis-Skelly was first seen against Manchester City in September when he gave him his first appearance of the season at the Etihad Stadium. Arsenal were defending a 2-1 lead with 10 men and, in the 89th minute, the youngster was introduced despite having already been booked for telling Raya to go down to waste precious seconds.
His is a streetwise mind, one that Arteta rates enough to stay back as the last line of defence at attacking corners.
He has been caught in possession a few times since he came into the team, but his confidence is not easily knocked and he showed how calm he remains even in situations where one mistake would mean the opposition are in on goal.
In the 2-0 first-leg defeat by Newcastle in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup, he had to deal with a tricky bouncing ball.
Anthony Gordon is the last person a player wants chasing them down but he let it run through his legs, feigned to go right and turned the other way. He then gave the same shimmy of the hips to Alexandr Isak before nearly threading Jurrien Timber through on goal.
There are times when Lewis-Skelly’s belief in his own ability to beat his man has caused Arteta unnecessary stress on the touchline.
One such incident came in the same game when he received the ball from Raya inside his own box, then baited Sandro Tonali and Jacob Murphy into attempting to close him down. With two subtle touches, he was able to spin them and burst through a tiny gap, eventually being fouled.
Arteta deserves credit for spotting the potential for him to play at left-back soon after he moved up to the first-team squad. He still retains the skill set to play at No 6 or No 8, where he played while at the academy, but that elasticity in his hips makes him so difficult to read.
The away win over Crystal Palace contained the most examples of how he likes to invite opponents close to the ball before slaloming past a tackle or two and finding an escape.
Against Ipswich Town, Kalvin Phillips was another victim of thinking he could win the ball on his first touch.
The Dembele-esque ability to change direction at pace can transform the pace of Arsenal’s attacks.
Monaco were made to pay when they tried to press his first touch, but Lewis-Skelly wants nothing more than an opponent sprinting straight at him as it means he can jink his way around the pressure.
After the restorative victory over Spurs, Wright asked him if he was intimidated or scared coming up against Kulusevski or Brennan Johnson, prompting the youngster to deliver a look as if checking his interviewer was being serious.
“Never… never,” said Lewis-Skelly. “Never afraid of no one. I want to be the best. I want to go against the best.”
(Top photo: Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
