Remember the name? The vast majority inside the Emirates Stadium already knew it. They even had a song prepared when Charlie Patino, an 18-year-old playmaker who has attained near-mythical status with his performances in youth football, limbered up beside the halfway line and waited for the ball to go dead.
He made his entrance to rapturous applause and, 10 minutes later, had raised the roof with a smartly taken goal on his senior debut; if everything goes to plan it will be a quiz question a few years down the line and Sunderland, enterprising but well beaten, may not overly mind being the answer.
“A beautiful moment,” Mikel Arteta said of Patino’s stabbed finish from six yards, which added a fuzzy glow to a Carabao Cup quarter-final that was already well won. “He is a kid that is coming through our system, a lovely kid. He is training with us almost every week. It was a dream. As a debut here, to score in front of our fans, a special moment.”
Nobody with the slightest handle on Arsenal, and especially not those immersed in the minute analysis of young prospects that abounds on social media, will have escaped the hype around Patino. Those who know best believe he can handle it and you need not go far to find informed onlookers, views gleaned from putting boots on the ground, who believe Arsenal’s academy has developed an extraordinary talent. This glimpse felt all the more precious because it will not be repeated too frequently just yet. “Now we have to cook him slowly,” Arteta said, miming the shape of a pot.
If Patino requires proof that the path does not always run smoothly he need only look at Arsenal’s real matchwinner. Eddie Nketiah is another product of their system but, at 22, feels he is going stale without starts in the Premier League. He has rejected a new contract but offered a timely demonstration of his qualities here, particularly given the intrigue surrounding Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Nketiah’s hat-trick came from a cumulative range of around 15 yards, although two of those goals were flicked in quite sublimely; he has an old-school poacher’s quality that might best have fitted a top-six team two or three decades ago, but could yet have played his way back into Arsenal’s present.
“He has incredible work rate, he has pace and has the smell for goals,” Arteta said. “He wants to be the best and works all the time to do that. He’s a player that has come through our system and that’s why we want to keep him.”
Nketiah’s potency helped guarantee a margin of victory that was slightly harsh on Sunderland, who showed in spells why they are fighting for promotion from League One. Around 5,000 away fans had decided the epidemiological situation was no barrier to a journey south; they saw Lee Johnson’s side take pains to assert themselves, deserving the goal from Nathan Broadhead that gave Arsenal a mild headache at half-time but ultimately proving ripe to be picked off. “I thought the lads played really well in patches,” Johnson said. “It’s a massive lesson for them, the best lesson you could possibly feel.”
The first part of it was handed down by Nketiah, who bundled in with his thigh after Lee Burge had done well to save Rob Holding’s free header.
Sunderland had started well enough, although Elliot Embleton had struck his own bar as Arsenal turned the screw. A second goal followed when Nicolas Pépé, sharp enough despite having played only 12 minutes since the previous round of this competition, took a return pass from Cédric Soares and saw his shot deflect in off Callum Doyle.
Broadhead dinked neatly past Bernd Leno after a slick move but would not complete the first half, departing with an injury. Arsenal pulled clear from there, Nketiah darting in to touch Nuno Tavares’ waist-high cross past Burge on the volley four minutes after the interval and then gorgeously backheeling in Pépé’s centre just before the hour following the winger’s nutmeg on Denver Hume.
“I’m desperate to play football, every player wants to play,” Nketiah said.
“All I can do is work hard and it will work itself out. As long as I play for Arsenal I’ll give my all.”
Pépé’s future is beset by its own question marks, but he had one more flourish left. It may have been the most important: a step inside worked space to find Patino, who had timed his run from the edge of the box, in added time. Whether or not Pépé remains at Arsenal much longer, at least he can say he was there.
“He still has a lot of competition in front of him, he is really young and he needs to go step by step,” Arteta said, again trying to cool any impatience around Patino. In time, this may resemble more of a leap.
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