Mikel Arteta calls up Arsenal 17-year-old likened to Paul Pogba to pre-Liverpool training

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Arsenal will look to make it three Premier League wins in a row when they host Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Mikel Arteta‘s Gunners are back in Premier League title contention, currently sitting five points off the top of the table.

Arsenal have the opportunity to get to within two points of Liverpool should they triumph against the 2019-20 champions in north London.

The Gunners will be buoyed by their 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest, where they dominated proceedings but were nearly caught out towards the end.

Arteta has been putting his Arsenal players through their paces at London Colney, with the Gunners media team publishing a number of photos from training.

Ayden Heaven, one of Hale End’s top talents, featured in the session, with one photo showing him vying with fellow academy graduate Bukayo Saka for the ball.

Arsenal talent Ayden Heaven factfile

Ayden Heaven joined the Arsenal setup in 2019 and was part of the Gunners’ 2023 intake, as per Gunners youth team expert Jeorge Bird.

The 17-year-old is a midfielder but has largely been playing in defence for Arsenal’s Under-18s this season, with one appearance on the left wing.

‘Heaven can also operate at centre-back but he is most effective in midfield, where he can surge forward to excellent effect,’ wrote Bird.

A separate article on Bird’s website noted how the youngster’s playing style in midfield saw him ‘drawing comparisons to Paul Pogba.

‘Nowadays, however, he is almost exclusively used in defence, although Heaven has shown his versatility in that regard as despite mainly being a centre-back he has also been played at left-back on several occasions of late.’

Heaven was previously at West Ham United’s academy, but they let him go at age 12.

In an interview on the Arsenal website last September, he said it’s worked out well for him because he’s a boyhood Gunners fan and because Hale End was just a 15-minute drive from him.

His favourite Arsenal players growing up were Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott.