Arsenal’s Zinchenko: I nearly lost my leg at 17 – I never give up

Oleksandr Zinchenko gathered his young team in a huddle. Facing them were a side organised by his Arsenal team-mate Takehiro Tomiyasu. Zinchenko’s message to his players was simple but firmly delivered. “If we lose against Tomiyasu’s team today I won’t sleep for three days,” he tells them.

Zinchenko certainly sounded serious to his attentive players, all aged 14 or 15, all pupils of St Aloysius’ College, a school two miles north of the Emirates Stadium. Even when Thursday’s game at the Arsenal Hub by the stadium kicked off, Zinchenko repeated loudly to his players: “We can’t lose against Tomiyasu.” The Japanese full back, nursing a calf injury, managed his team from the sidelines. Zinchenko was in the thick of it, going in for a 50-50,