Hughton hopes young guns will add firepower

Dec 5 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

CHRIS Hughton has revealed he will be looking into the possibility of signing one of Arsenal’s promising youngsters after the Gunners were knocked out of the Carling Cup this week.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger uses the League Cup as an opportunity to give his youngsters some vital first-team experience, but Hughton feels he may wish to send some of them out on loan now after their interest in that competition was ended by a 3-0 defeat at Manchester City.

Hughton said: “Everybody would be silly not to look and enquire, because what I’ve seen with the group that have come out there, they are of such a high quality, albeit very young.

“At a club like Arsenal, one of the requirements would be that they were going to go and play regular football.

“Possibly they’ll end up where they can find that and we’ve always said we will only sign players who will improve what we already have.”

As well as looking to strengthen, Hughton will also fight off any attempts by other clubs to sign his players, with Kevin Nolan, Jonas Gutierrez and Andy Carroll just some of the names linked with transfers over the last few weeks.

As manager, Hughton is confident he will be able to do that and maintains he has the final say on all comings and goings, although some supporters still fear players will be sold if owner Mike Ashley decides to intervene.

Hughton said: “The players of ours that have been linked elsewhere, it’s testament to their form this season and that the team is doing very well. But we have no interest in players leaving this club in the window.

“The only thing we’re interested in is making sure we’ve got a squad at the end of it which is good enough to go through the rest of the season.”