Nigerian-born Arsenal player,Chuba Akpom is delighted with how things went for him scoring a hat-trick in a 4-0 win against Singapore XI during the English Barclays pre-season tour in Singapore. With the match ball tucked under his arm, Chuba Akpom has been talking about his three goals and his future at Arsenal.
The 19-year old striker scored a hat-trick to raise his hopes of being involved in Arsenal’s first team this season fired them to victory against a Singapore Select XI in the semi-final of the Barclays Asia Trophy at the National Stadium. Akpom opened the scoring for Arsene Wenger’s side in their first pre-season fixture of the new campaign inside the first half before Jack Wilshere doubled the lead from the penalty spot after Mathieu Debuchy appeared to trip himself up.
It thrilled a crowd of nearly 30,000, who were made to wait for their first glimpse of Petr Cech – and went wild when he appeared on the big screen, relaxing in his seat in the stands, in the closing minutes.
Cech and the other players who played international football at the end of last season did not report for training until last Friday and were not involved in the first friendly of pre-season and trained instead.
Akpom said: “Scoring goals for me is the best feeling ever. To get three is even better but most importantly the team won. My third was my favourite, I’m not the best at heading but I’ve been working on it over the summer. The manager wants me to go and express myself out there and that’s what I tried to do.
“I’ve been trying to do that (break into the first-team) for a few years now. The most important thing is to show the boss what I can do. It is nice to get a hat-trick.”
Meanwhile, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was happy to be involved with the Nigerian-born scoring his first hat-trick in Arsenal colour. “I would love to work with Akpom in the future. He’s the future of Arsenal,” he said.
“I had interest in him since last season when he went on loan. He just needs to be concentrated and he will hit the ground running.”