Our Young Gun series gets to know the academy youngsters kicking off their careers at the Sobha Realty Training Centre.
Jessie Gale spoke to us recently about her spells on loan with Portsmouth and Bristol City, and her hopes for the under-20 World Cup in Poland this summer.
My loan spell with Portsmouth at the start of the season was incredibly successful and fruitful. The girls were great, the staff were great and I really enjoyed my time there. It was a very different challenge to the one I’m facing now at Bristol City, because we were up against relegation.
It was good to experience that because we were fighting for something every single week, and when we did cause an upset against a big team there was something to celebrate. Playing in the WSL2 is definitely a step up from academy and tier three football. The physicality is a big part of that, of course, but it’s the mental side too.
I remember finding out I was going out on loan vividly. All the girls were away on pre-season tour, but Kim, Leah and I stayed back because we were injured. I had a few loan options at the start of the season and I had a really long chat with Kim about where I should go.
I’m also constantly speaking to Alessia and Chloe, asking for their advice, so they helped me too. Everyone’s main message was a consistent one: go somewhere where you believe you will play.
“I want to come back ready to play for Arsenal.”
After my successful start at Portsmouth, I had four or five options for a new loan in January, so I had a new decision to make. I felt that Bristol City have such big ambitions and great investment and that’s something I wanted to be a part of.
When I spoke to Charlotte Healy, the manager, she was top. She shares similar beliefs with Renée in terms of playing style and philosophy, which played a part in my decision. I want to come back ready to play for Arsenal, so going somewhere similar was really important.
My most memorable moment at Arsenal so far is probably signing my professional contract, but more generally I’ve loved being in the environment every day. When we won the Champions League final, the Academy graduates and I were out in Lisbon as well, which was an incredible moment to experience.
We’d been training with them leading up to the final, so we saw how much everyone wanted it and how much effort was going into this game. I was so proud to see all the girls get what they deserved.
It took me a couple of months to really adapt to the level and properly take in the information we get on a daily basis. With the support of such great girls and a great coaching staff around me, they made everything much easier.
I’m quite open about having ADHD, and the squad always make me feel like I could be myself. They always tell me: we love you for who you are. Even if I come in at 8am, running around the place on a high, they would all accept me for that.
I think sometimes, young players might worry that older players are these really big, intimidating players who have won Euros and Champions Leagues and World Cups. At Arsenal, they’re the polar opposite of that. They’re some of the easiest people to speak to and they want to learn as much about you as you do about them.
It’s a 50-50 thing. If you put effort into relationships with people, they’ll take you in – and they took me in. Arsenal is just a family.
My advice to anyone starting out in academy football is to take everything in. Always do your extras and put in more effort whenever you can, because that will benefit you in the long term.
Use that time to develop your technical skills but also keep building mental resilience so you’re ready to push the minute you go into senior football. If results aren’t going your way or you’ve got to sit on the bench for a few weeks, you’ve got to be ready for that. That’s part of football.
I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I’m not a big thinker ahead of time. I always say to people that not much actually gets me down because I try not to worry about the future. I take each game as it comes because if I think too far into the future, I get a bit ahead of myself.
That being said, I want to finish the season really well with Bristol City and be ready to go back to Arsenal in pre-season to show what I’ve learned on loan. And then there’s the Under-20 World Cup with England, which I would love to go to and win. That would be a bucket list moment.
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