Arp confident of following Davies and Zirkzee into Bayern's first team reckoning

Arp - a product of Hamburg's youth academy - rose to prominence in the 2017/18 season when he became the first player born in the 2000s to score in the Bundesliga, bagging a consolation in the Red Shorts' 2-1 loss at Hertha Berlin that October.

The millennial striker had previously scored 18 goals in 19 outings with Germany's U17 team, and the clamour for his signature when HSV suffered their first ever relegation in 2018 was as fierce as it was predictable.

Watch: Arp reflects on his first Bundesliga goal... as well as addressing his first name!

Bayern won the race to sign him, and although Robert Lewandowski - arguably the greatest striker ever to have graced the Bundesliga - stood in Arp's way at the point of the champions' attack, the now 19-year-old might still have expected to feature more had consecutive wrist fractures not held up his progress.

"My injuries were unfortunate at the time but every young player goes through that," an upbeat Arp explained to Sport1. "If you can master them it can help you for the future more than it harms you. You have the best possible conditions at Bayern. Nobody could've guessed that I'd fall on my arm a second time. It was just bad luck."

David Alaba is the most recent first-team regular to have graduated from the Bayern youth ranks, and he made his Bundesliga debut for the club in 2010, but in Alphonso Davies and Joshua Zirkzee in particular, Bayern have increasingly leant on teenage promise in recent weeks.

"[Zirkzee]'s run in the team gave me motivation because there were moments I saw which I knew I could be capable of," Arp said of his fellow attacker, who scored having come off the bench in consecutive games before the winter break. "Young players are getting a bigger chance at Bayern than they have done for a long time.

"[Hansi Flick] has built up a close relationship with the young players, especially me, since he was the assistant coach. I trained with him often when I couldn't train with the first team. He made it clear to me that I should stay calm and not put myself under too much pressure. But he's asked me to come back fit and to step on the gas after the winter break."

Arp is part of the 26-man squad who have been taken to Qatar for Bayern's winter training camp. If all goes to plan, he could be fit and ready to feature when the champions kick off their Rückrunde campaign away to Hertha on Sunday 19 January.