LONDON -- The date is March, 21 2007. "300" is riding high in the US box office. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just launched the first iPhone. LCD Soundsystem have just released the transcendently excellent "Sound of Silver." And the Nwaneri family have just welcomed Ethan to the fold.
Fifteen years and 181 days later he has become the Premier League's youngest ever player, smashing the record set by Harvey Elliott for Fulham, who made his top-flight debut at the age of 16 years and 30 days in May 2019. Now Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta hopes Nwaneri will leave the door open for yet more academy graduates, following in the footsteps of Hale End graduates Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe.
It is no great surprise that he is also the youngest player to feature for Arsenal, breaking a record set by club legend Cesc Fabregas. Nwaneri also became the first debutant for the Gunners to have been born after they moved into the Emirates Stadium.
His appearance as an 89th-minute replacement for Fabio Vieira was the cherry on top of an exceptional afternoon for Arsenal and their traveling supporters, who serenaded their debutant with chants of "he's got school in the morning" and, aimed in the direction of a disappointing Brentford side, "how shit must you be, he's only 15". Indeed Nwaneri is so young that he was not allowed to change with the rest of the Arsenal team before today's game.
"It was a pure gut feeling," Arteta said of his decision to make history with Nwaneri. "I met the boy. I really liked what I saw. Per [Mertesacker, head of Arsenal's academy] and the academy staff gave me really good information about him as well. I met him, he's trained a couple of times with us as well. Yesterday he had to come because we had the injuries, especially to Martin [Odegaard], and then I had that feeling from yesterday that if the opportunity could come, that I was going to do it, and I just did it.
"It's another step, another experience. In your career all the steps are not going to be forward. After that, maybe he needs three backwards to go another one forward, but as well I think it sends a really strong message about who we are a as a club."
There is a rich lineage of bright young things breaking through at Arsenal as soon as they are ready. Fabregas, who set the record mere weeks after signing from Barcelona as a 16-year-old, and Jack Wilshere both found themselves thrown in at the deep end at an early age by Arsene Wenger, who was more than prepared to build his team around precocious talent.
Arteta has followed that blueprint. Vieira may have been well into his school years when Nwaneri was born but at just 22 he has the best years ahead of him, quite something when he marked his first Premier League start with a bending strike from outside the box. Alongside him in the Arsenal attack were Saka, who only turned 21 earlier this month, and Gabriel Martinelli, a Brazil international at 21.
Arteta is acutely aware of the value of the production line that runs from Hale End to the Emirates Stadium. "All the decisions that we take, that I take it's for the club. It's not for me, it's not for the player. It's because we believe that he has a talent that has to be developed in the next two or three years and we will see how we manage that. The boy will dictate that. Normally it's not us. Normally the players tell you and demand of you [that you let them show] how far they can go."
Nwaneri has long been viewed as one of the best and brightest youngsters at Hale End but his promotion to the first team was certainly some way ahead of schedule, thrust on Arteta after injuries to Odegaard, Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson, the former pulling out just before Sunday's 3-0 win with a knock to his calf.
Perhaps unsurprisingly Arteta was loath to overburden his youngster with information when he was called up to the first team squad on Saturday night.
"These days it's better not to tell them anything! Just throw him in there and see what happens," he said.
"I told him yesterday that he was going to be with us and that I want him to experience, to be in the hotel, to see the preparations for the game, to be around the boys and that he had to be ready. If you're on that bench, you have to be ready. [When he came on] I said congratulations and enjoy it."
Certainly, the timing made it a moment for Nwaneri to relish. Long before he entered the fray William Saliba, Gabriel Jesus and Vieira had struck fine goals to send Mikel Arteta's side back to the top of the Premier League table, where they lead Manchester City and Tottenham by a point.
