The Mirror<\/a>he said, \u201cI hope he doesn\u2019t go. I don\u2019t mean it in a horrible way because if I could go back in time, I would change things. I would say to myself, \u2018no, no, don\u2019t do it\u2019, but then try telling that to a 17-year-old.<\/p>\n\u201cI do still see him and me differently as he\u2019s playing in the Premier League but he needs to grow at his own pace, especially on the emotional side, because he\u2019s a young adult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to grow up very fast but this team is still young and not as experienced. He\u2019s being protected, which is important, whereas I had to get thrown in to talk to you lot the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn time he will go, yes, but I don\u2019t think this is the time and I think there are better players who arguably deserve to be there ahead of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Focus on Development<\/h2>\n
Dowman has yet to fully establish himself within the Arsenal first team, and there is a strong argument that his development would be better served away from intense global scrutiny. Participation in a World Cup at this stage could place unnecessary pressure on a player still refining both his game and his maturity.<\/p>\n
Allowing him to progress naturally, without the heightened expectations of international tournaments, may ultimately provide a more stable foundation for long term success.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Max Dowman has been tipped to earn a place in the England national team squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America. However, Theo Walcott has urged caution, drawing from his own experience of being selected for a major tournament at a young age. Walcott found himself in a similar position two decades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}