It’s been a couple of months, but Arsenal are finally back.

We are still a few weeks away from the return of the Premier League, but Mikel Arteta’s side played their first official preseason game in the early hours of this morning, taking on Bournemouth in Los Angeles.

It wasn’t a match of the highest quality, but the Gunners emerged victorious with a team full of academy products and a number of players who really took their chance, including one who could spell trouble for Oleksandr Zinchenko and provided some unexpected competition for the incoming Riccardo Calafiori as well.

Arsenal’s stand-out performers

Considering it was their first quasi-competitive game back in quite some time, a number of Arsenal starters stood out against the Cherries.

One of the best players on the pitch was, unsurprisingly, Club captain Martin Odegaard, who came on at the start of the second half for the young Salah Oulad M’Hand – who also looked good – and proceeded to run the show.

The Norwegian international maintained a passing accuracy of 93%, played two key passes and was given an 8/10 for his efforts from Football.london’s Kaya Kaynak, who claimed that the midfielder ‘raised the level of Arsenal’s play with the ball.’

Another strong showing came from the right-back position as Ben White looked calm and composed throughout his 78 minutes of action, in which he won four duels, made three interceptions and took 42 touches, which was enough to earn him a 7/10 from Kaynak.

However, while you may expect impressive performances from these first-team regulars, there was a youngster who started this morning and made a real impression in his 63 minute display: Myles Lewis-Skelly.

Lewis-Skelly’s game and the concern for Zinchenko

Despite being just 17 years old, Arteta decided to start Lewis-Skelly against Bournemouth last night, and to his credit, it was a brilliant decision.

He may have only played for 63 minutes, but in that time he looked like a seasoned professional and was utterly unphased by the prospect of playing a Cherries side that wasn’t far off their regular Premier League team.

Kayak was notably impressed with the young star. In his half-time match ratings, he awarded him a 7/10 and described him as ‘assured on the ball’ and ‘really impressive as a one-vs-one defender in the left back role.’

His numbers from the game back up this assessment. In his 63 minutes of action, he completed 33 of 33 passes, won 100% of his aerial duels, completed one long ball, took 45 touches, made one interception, and made one tackle.

The fact he looked so comfortable in the left-back role is fantastic news for Arteta, but could be bad news for Zinchenko.

The Ukrainian already found himself slipping down the pecking order behind Jakub Kiwior and Takehiro Tomiyasu towards the end of last season, and now that Calafiori is set to join the Club and Lewis-Skelly has shown an ability to perform in his position, he could struggle to get any game time at all in the coming campaign.

To take it a step further, if the “unplayable” teen, as dubbed by Jack Wilshere, can maintain this form for the rest of preseason, he could rapidly rise the pecking order and become one of the main back-up options to the Bologna star, perhaps even offering him more of a challenge than some are expecting.

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Ultimately, while it’s unlikely that he will be playing a massive role in the coming campaign, Lewis-Skelly looks like a real talent, and his emergence, while great for the Club, could be the final nail in the coffin for Zinchenko.