Arsenal goalkeeper Alexei Rojas defended himself this week amid a rather unusual situation.
Rojas has been away at the U20 World Cup with Colombia, who finished in third place in the tournament.
The shot-stopper didn’t feature in a single game during the competition, with his only appearance coming in a pre-tournament friendly.
That in itself was a rare outing for Rojas, who is mainly seen by Arsenal as a training goalkeeper.
Indeed, Rojas’ last competitive appearance for Arsenal at any level came for the U21s against Southampton in February 2024. Since the start of last season, however, he has effectively been the fourth-choice goalkeeper for the first-team and has participated in the majority of the training sessions with Mikel Arteta’s squad.
Colombia U20 coach Cesar Torres criticised Rojas’ lack of playing time recently, with the 20-year-old responding by insisting that he is contributing for the Arsenal first-team.
Rojas’ situation is a somewhat unusual one as although he will surely have learned a lot from facing high-quality players in training, he would surely benefit from playing matches on some occasions.
Last season Rojas was named on the bench for the first-team against Bolton Wanderers in the Carabao Cup but Jack Porter, who is younger than him, was chosen to start that game.
James Hillson previously found himself in a similar situation at Arsenal before leaving the club in 2024.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Rojas beyond this campaign but the way in which he has been deployed by the club is rather unusual.
Rojas trained with the first-team when he was a schoolboy and was seen as highly-rated when progressing through the ranks but is now finding game time very difficult to come by.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
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