By this point, the name ‘Max Aarons’ is somewhere inside the head of most every football fan in England. For those of you who don’t follow the Championship, you’ll be unsure as to why you keep hearing this lad’s name – I’m here to enlighten you…
Bio
Aarons is a nineteen-year-old right-back from Hammersmith, London. He plays for Norwich City and is currently enjoying one of the best debut professional football seasons of any Championship player ever. He’s fresh from being named in the EFL Championship Team of the Season, as well as being honoured with the title of EFL Young Player of the Season.
The surname ‘Aarons’ might sound familiar to any Newcastle United or Sheffield Wednesday fans reading, that’s because Max is the cousin of on-loan Newcastle winger, Rolando Aarons.
Starting off at Luton at the age of 9, Aarons’ career is already ten years deep. He would spend five years playing for the Hatters between 2009-14 before moving on to East Anglia and Norwich. After just two years in the Canaries academy, Aarons was promoted to the first team for whom he made his debut on August 14th 2018 in an EFL Cup match against Stevenage. Since then, he has gone from virtually unknown, to one of English football’s hottest young talents.
Max Aarons 2018/19 Season
As mentioned above, Max made his debut in an EFL cup match back in August. It didn’t tak long after that for him to make the side for a league game, as his manager threw him right into the deep end for his first Championship start in The East Anglian Derby. In fact, since then, he has started every single Norwich City league game, playing the whole 90 minutes in all but one of those matches (Wigan at home).
In terms of goal contributions, much like his maiden appearance, his first goal also came in the EFL Cup – he bagged the third goal in Norwich’s 3-1 win against Cardiff back in August. In the league, he has managed two goals this season, both in December against Rotherham and Bristol City. As well as his goals, he’s chipped in with six assists throughout the course of the season.
However, lets not forget that as a right-back, scoring goals isn’t his main job – it’s keeping them out that he needs to be concerned with. He’s done a pretty decent job of that too, being an important cog in a defensive unit that has kept 12 clean sheets while he’s been in the squad.
What’s next?
Well, Aarons and his Norwich side are on the brink of promotion to the Premier League. They sit atop the EFL Championship and need just a single point to guarantee automatic promotion. Due to his wondrous season, he will undoubtedly have plenty of suitors knocking on his managers door to enquire about his availability come summer.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s in everybody’s best interest to let him stay with Norwich for at least one season in the Premier League. As well as the fact he’s recently signed a new five-year deal, we’ve seen this season how success in the Championship doesn’t guarantee success in the Premier League.
Ryan Sessegnon was last summer’s Max Aarons and despite his obvious talent and youth, he has struggled this year. We’ve watched all season as he has failed to make any kind of an impact in the Premier League in a very poor Fulham side. With that in mind, the best thing for Aarons’ development is without a doubt at least one more season with the canaries – let’s not forget, he only has one season on professional experience under his belt.
Either way, he will most likely still be at Norwich next season. Aarons has all the potential in the world to be England’s starting right-back for years to come and personally, I cannot wait to watch him fulfil it.
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