Ian Wright Defends Myles Lewis-Skelly Amid Transfer Speculation

Ian Wright has launched a fierce defence of Arsenal academy star Myles Lewis-Skelly and taken aim at the way the club are handling transfer noise around their young talents.

Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, the former Gunners striker bristled at growing speculation over Lewis-Skelly’s future and the role of intermediaries circling around Arsenal’s business.

“I don't know where that's coming from because I know for a fact that's not coming from his team,” Wright said, dismissing suggestions that the teenager’s camp are pushing for a move. “It's not coming from his mum. Arsenal fans need to chill out with his mum saying that she's touting him about. Myles has already said he's happy to stay.”

For Wright, the solution should be simple. A firm public stance from the club.

“Why have Arsenal not just said he's not for sale?” he asked. “He'd be a great signing for Manchester United, of course he would. Look what he's doing.”

The frustration runs deeper than one player. Wright fears a growing reliance on middlemen is muddying the waters around Arsenal’s squad.

“There's things happening and this again is what I'm worried about with Arsenal, it's the way we're doing business with intermediaries now,” he said. “How's that story happening when we know for a fact they're happy and want to stay?”

He pointed to another case that has raised eyebrows for him.

“[Gabriel] Martinelli has not been contacted by anybody at the club but has been touted about everywhere, who is doing that? Why is that happening?”

For Wright, the messaging from Arsenal’s hierarchy does not tally with the transfer rumours that swirl around the club. The contradiction, he argued, is stark.

“You know what's confusing? How can we be in for Vinicius Junior when we're looking to break records trying to sign this guy but now we're desperate to sell. What's going on?”

He accepts the reality of a bloated squad and the need for departures. But the pattern of exits and the type of players under pressure to move on trouble him.

“We've got a big squad and somebody has to leave but it seems like everyone leaving Arsenal is going to Turkey, that's another thing,” he said.

The real sting, in Wright’s eyes, lies in how financial rules turn homegrown success into a balance-sheet opportunity.

“The unfortunate thing you get when you've got a player who comes through the academy and breaks in to the first team and does what they do, you've always got that noose of pure profit on them.”

That concern stretches beyond Lewis-Skelly. Wright highlighted Ethan Nwaneri as another example of a youngster caught between potential and accounting logic.

“It's the same with Ethan Nwaneri. I'm hearing now that they're not going to sell him they want to loan him which I'm quite pleased about because I don't think at any stage he's had a run to have a go at playing in that team.”

Lewis-Skelly, though, sits at the heart of his argument. A teenager making an impact, attracting heavyweight interest, but, according to Wright, not agitating for the exit.

“When you've got someone like Myles who is playing well, it's unbelievable what he's capable of doing then of course Manchester United will see if something can happen,” he said. “They've seen Guimaraes come in they've seen Declan Rice.”

That is precisely why Wright cannot understand the silence from Arsenal.

“He doesn't want to leave and that's the thing that's really baffling me is why Arsenal don't just come in and say he's not for sale.”