Mark Randall made his debut for the Gunners in 2006 and was tipped for big things in his career. Arsene Wenger felt he ‘was too good not to make it’ yet Arsenal released him in 2011. Early on in his Arsenal career it was obvious to all the talent that Randall possessed and it seemed as though it was going to be a matter of time before he was a regular in the Arsenal side.
Randall made a couple of League Cup appearances in the 05/06 season and slowly started to integrate himself closer to the first-team. The following campaign he again played in the League Cup regularly, before being loaned out to Burnley to gain some more first-team experience. He performed well with the Lancashire club and after his loan move it seemed as though Randall was ready to make a regular step towards the first-team. After a good pre-season Randall made his Champions League debut and was a regular on the Arsenal bench for league games. Once again he featured heavily in the League Cup side but struggled to break into the first-team fold and his development seemed to slowly stagnate. After a disappointing 08/09 season Randall was loaned to his place-of-birth, Milton Keynes Dons and scored 1 goal in 16 matches during his spell at the club. At this stage Randall only had a year left on his contract and at the state of the 10/11 season he was loaned out to Rotherham, again struggling to show any consistent form.
When he returned from his loan it was announced that Randall’s contract wasn’t going to be renewed and he was released in June 2011. This ended a 10 year spell with the club, where in that time Randall had risen through the youth ranks up to being in and around the first-team squad. Randall went on the hunt for a new club and eventually signed for Chesterfield. They were the first club that gave him his big break in professional football and here he finally settled down, notching up 51 appearances in two seasons adding four goals to his name.
After some impressive displays for Chesterfield in league 2 Randall was picked up by Italian side Ascoli in 2013. Randall said that this “was a fresh start” for him and on his debut he produced 3 assists, attaining the man of the match prize in the process. After such a good start though his time at Ascoli started to unfold and after the club couldn’t afford to pay its players Randall was again soon on the move. Once again he returned to MK Dons, and providing nothing goes wrong he should be playing there until 2015.
Mark Randall rose through the ranks at Arsenal with the likes of Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs and whilst his career may not have reached the heights that their’s did he has still being relatively successful wherever he has played. Hopefully we’ll see more of him in the future and at 24 he still has plenty of time to showcase the immense potential he had growing up.