{"id":151691,"date":"2019-09-12T18:09:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T17:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=151691"},"modified":"2019-09-12T18:09:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T17:09:55","slug":"epl-arsenal-confirm-deal-for-20-year-old-midfielder-ahead-of-watford-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=151691","title":{"rendered":"EPL: Arsenal confirm deal for 20-year-old midfielder ahead of Watford clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Arsenal-free-kick-specialist-agrees-to-play-for-Nigeria.png\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"mvp-content-main\">Arsenal have confirmed that midfielder, Joe Willock signed a new long-term contract extension with the club on Thursday ahead of their Premier League clash with Watford this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners made this known in a statement on the club\u2019s official website on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The statement reads: \u201cMidfielder Joe Willock has signed a new long-term contract.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJoe, who turned 20 last month, has been associated with the club since he was four years old. He has progressed through our youth ranks at the Arsenal Academy, making his senior debut in September 2017 against Doncaster Rovers in the League Cup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has now made 20 first-team appearances and started our first three Premier League matches this season. He was also included in the latest England Under-21 squad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Willock\u2019s new contract, Arsenal\u2019s Technical Director, Edu told the club\u2019s official website: \u201cWe\u2019re delighted that Joe has committed his long-term future to us. The hard work of the academy coaches and staff, Joe, his family and everyone behind the scenes has been key to the development of his potential.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBringing young players through to the first team from the academy is an important part of our approach and Joe\u2019s progression is a good example of how we want to work in the future. Joe has shown hard work and determination to get this far. He\u2019s continuing to develop and we look forward to him making a big contribution to the club.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal have confirmed that midfielder, Joe Willock signed a new long-term contract extension with the club on Thursday ahead of their Premier League clash with Watford this weekend. The Gunners made this known in a statement on the club\u2019s official website on Thursday. The statement reads: \u201cMidfielder Joe Willock has signed a new long-term contract. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[4427],"class_list":["post-151691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-arsenal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/145000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}