Saints Starlet Signs Professional Terms After Snubbing Arsenal Tuesday, 9th Feb 2016 10:59 Saints youngster Callum Slattery has ignored the overtures of Arsenal and signed a professional contract with Southampton. Callum Slattery is the latest of a long line of Saints starlets with the potential to play Premier League football, Arsenal have long been known to be admirers and the worry at St Mary's was that the Gunners would lure him to the Emirates when it came time to sign his first professional deal. However that worry is over as Slattery put pen to paper yesterday on a professional contract. Southampton's executive director of football Les Reed said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for Callum to follow in the footsteps of a long line of homegrown players at this club. "Callum has demonstrated the desire and talent to strive for first-team football at Southampton. Callum has the correct profile to follow the pathway to the first team we have created. "He knows this will require the same level of hard work and dedication previous demonstrated by the likes of Gareth Bale and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and more recently by fellow midfielders James Ward-Prowse and Harrison Reed." Perhaps one of the things that tipped Slattery towards signing a professional deal with Saints rather than succumb to bigger money offers from the likes of Arsenal is looking at those youngsters who went before him who did just that early in their Saints career, Calum Chambers after initially doing well at Arsenal has seen his career stall in the past year and he struggles to get a game with Arsene Wenger's side. Likewise Luke Shaw has not been a success at Old Trafford even taking into account injuries and even Gareth Bale initially struggled at Spurs. Slattery knows that his best chance for success in the long term comes at Saints, he has a better chance of breaking into the first team at St Mary's that he would at Arsenal or elsewhere. Those who say that the wheels are falling off the youth system at Saints are wrong, there is still a good steady stream of talent emerging, however it would be foolish to believe we could continue to keep producing the numbers per year that we have done in the last few years. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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