Reuell Walters: What Can He Offer to Luton?
Club: Arsenal
Nationality: England
Position: CB, RB
Preferred Foot: Right
Height: 6’0”/183cm
Age: 19
Strengths: physicality, strength, ball-carrying, tackling, speed, passing
Areas for Development: anticipation, experience
After suffering relegation from the Premier League, Luton Town have been hard at work to ensure that they will blaze through the EFL Championship and make a swift return to England’s top-flight. Despite losing key figures like Gabriel Osho and Ryan Giles, the Hatters have bolstered Rob Edwards’ squad with Shandon Baptiste arriving on Brentford on a free transfer to replace Ross Barkley following his move to Aston Villa. Another player who has departed London and made the move to Luton on a free transfer is Reuell Walters.
At 19 years of age, Walters is a physically gifted player. His 1v1 strength in duels is sensational, capable of winning the ball off the opponent and excelling in terms of his physicality and upper-body strength. A ball-carrying monster, Walters loves to drive up the pitch with conviction, brushing off challengers and shielding the ball with his body, and he can carry the ball far past many players due to his powerful running style.
Having made a name for himself in Arsenal’s academy, the Hale End product is an athletic defender who’s blessed with good speed and physicality, enabling him to surpass his opponent. This recovery pace is essential when playing a high defensive line as one of the last defenders.
Moreover, tackling is one of Walters’ strengths. He’s often in good positions to help him make the tackle, but he doesn’t go to ground easily and instead stays on his feet, thus avoiding the risk of dangerous tackles, giving away set-pieces and racking up bookings. Walters’ passing ability is technically safe as he doesn’t lose possession playing the shorter passes and often looks to play long balls over the top of the opponent’s defence to to switch play.
Similarly to Arsenal’s Ben White, Walters can excel at the hybrid right back / center back role, although his experience playing as a right midfielder and a right back enables him to provide more of an attacking threat. His pace, dynamism, overlapping ability, physicality and defensive ability make him a brilliant fit for his role.
Walters is also comfortable on the ball with good agility, so if the game state required him to invert into midfield and play more central, he could do this with ease and confidence too, but at the same time, his ball-carrying is much more advanced than White. Similarly to William Saliba, despite being so tall, he’s an agile player with a tight turning radius and can dribble like a midfielder.
If Walters gains more experience playing at a higher level at CB playing against physically superior attackers, he won’t be able to rely on his physicality to defend and instead will have to become more intelligent with his positioning and anticipation, then he’d become a Premier League standard defender. Ultimately, though, he needs to cultivate anticipation and positioning in order to make the step up.
Eligible to represent England, Germany, or Jamaica, Walters has already suited up for England at the U18, U19 and U20 level, and he’s well on his way to making a name for himself at the senior level. At 19 years of age, he’s only going to get better, and he has picked the ideal place to hone his skills at Kenilworth Road.
By: Ben Mattinson / @Ben_Mattinson_
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Neal Simpson/ Allstar / Getty Images