Craig Eastmond hopes to use his loan at Millwall to stake a claim for a place at Arsenal next season.
Midfielder keen to secure more playing time on loan at Millwall
Craig Eastmond hopes to use his current loan spell with Millwall to stake his claim for a place in Arsenal team next season.
The 20-year-old has struggled to establish himself at The Den so far, but made his first start in a month in Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Watford.
However, with 11 league games still to go, the highly-rated midfielder says he hopes to follow the example set by Wojciech Szczesny this season, who has become a regular at Arsenal after an impressive loan stint with Brentford last term.
"Hopefully, I can get back into the side and gain as much experience out of my stay here as I can," Eastmond told
skysports.com.
Head down
"Then when I return to Arsenal I just need to keep my head down and work hard to impress the gaffer.
"He (Arsene Wenger) knows how to bring youngsters through the academy and into first-team regulars, so whatever he wants me to do next I'll be happy to do.
"His record at bringing youngsters through is excellent and there are loads of youngsters like me out on loan from Arsenal because you can't beat playing regular first-team football.
"It did Wojciech the world of good to go out with Brentford and play week in, week out, so hopefully I can do the same and impress the gaffer to give me a chance next season."
The Lions have fallen away from the play-off places in recent weeks and are currently 10 points adrift of the top six, but Eastmond is determined to get their season back on track when they face leaders QPR on Tuesday evening.
He added: "We have been a little disappointed with the last few games and felt that we should have got a lot more from them.
"If we had done then obviously we would be closer to the play-off places, but all the boys are coming together to try and get as close to the top six as we can.
"We've just got to try and put as many points on the board as possible and see where it takes us."
