Send in the clone: Clichy follows the Ashley path

Champions' League: Cole a role model at just 23 for a young Frenchman settling in London

A cliché, to apply the original meaning before it was seconded into the English language, is a French printing term. It was a metal plate, used to print an image, which was used over and over again. A Clichy is a copy also. A carbon copy - of an Arsenal left-back.

"Yes, Ashley Cole and I have a very similar game, but I am at an advantage because I can copy him," says Gaël Clichy, who looks - and plays - uncannily like the England international, although Cole, just turned 23, is actually five years his senior. "Ashley is a great player and a brilliant role model, and I can learn a lot from him."

Clichy is speaking only minutes after his victorious Champions' League debut against Celta Vigo on Tuesday evening. Aged just 18. At times his rawness, unsurprisingly, showed. The 3-2 win was a tough experience against an uncompromising Celta side who tried to exploit the callowness of the slender teenager. "It was difficult," he admits. "You have to work out when to move out and when not to commit yourself. I watch how Ashley does it a lot. He knows how to time things. Obviously it was a dream come true - but I found it very hard going because of the pace and the physical side of things. I found it hard to concentrate at that level for 90 minutes - any little mistake was dangerous... so I had to work very hard."

In Cole's absence, Clichy turned for advice to another England international, Sol Campbell. "Being at Arsenal makes it easier to learn," he says. "I listen to Sol when we are on the field because he is the player next to me in the defence. Sometimes when I am having difficulties with my positioning he will say things to me during half-time or afterwards."

His words come out breathlessly quickly. His excite-ment is palpable. Little wonder. Here is a young kid, propelled from the obscurity of AS Cannes, which was incidentally also Patrick Vieira's first club, into the big time. Already he has 15 first-team appearances to his name. By now, he expected none.

"It's amazing to play alongside the likes of Thierry [Henry], Patrick and Robert [Pires]," he says. "I can remember one minute I was watching them on the television and the next minute I was playing alongside them. Vieira looks after me the most, he's the most like a big brother, but all of them are great - they have all supported me."

Moments later and Pires wanders by. What does he think of his newest team-mate? "Gaël Clichy? Who's he?" Pires says, before adding: "No, seriously, he's like a little fish in water - he's doing really well, settling in well. The good thing about him playing for Arsenal is that we will all support him. We can all carry on working together and Arsène Wenger can count on all of us."

Togetherness. It is the mantra at Arsenal. "He's a charming kid and has a lot of character," says Pires, whose whiskered, long-haired appearance has earned him the nickname D'Artagnan. It's one for all and all for one, then. "He will surely play for France but he'd better wait a while because if not, he'll take my place! In a few years, he'll definitely be playing for France." Clichy is already the captain of the French Under-19 side, and last month was pushed into the Under-21s. "It didn't go too badly," he says of the appearance against Belgium. "I hope they call me again in March, because that's important to me as well. But you have to work hard. There are some good young players over there."

But few better. Clichy signed a four-year contract last summer after impressing, on trial, during Arsenal's pre-season tour to Austria. The fee was a nominal £250,000 because the French club had lost their professional status through relegation. It was a steal. Clichy's emergence owes much to Wenger's contacts, especially in the south of France, and to the judgement of the club's chief scout, Steve Rowley, who says: "I had seen enough in the warm-up, never mind the game. He looked the part - strong, quick and alert. He had the lot."

Clichy's debut came with the Carling Cup tie against Rotherham United - he scored in the penalty shoot-out - and almost half his appearances have already been made in the Premiership. Against Chelsea last weekend he looked imperious. "I am very fortunate to have had this opportunity, I have to keep working hard every day, so I keep my chance of playing in these high-level games," he says.

"It's a great pleasure playing for a team like this. Even before I actually joined Arsenal, I was a fan of the club. Now I am one of the players, but still a supporter."

Despite being raised in the rugby heartland of Toulouse, it was always football for the young Clichy. "I found it very hard in England in the first few months. I left my family in France and had to live on my own for the first time, but I have made some friends now and am finding it a lot easier," he says. Among them is Philippe Senderos, the Swiss teenager who also signed for Arsenal last summer, and his compatriot Jérémie Aliadière, who is 20. "He's young like me so I get on well with him," Clichy says. "I understand a little bit more [English] now and can express myself better, so that makes life easier."

His favourite player is Henry, although his inspiration is Cole. The admiration is mutual. Before last month's Carling Cup semi-final second leg Cole said he did not want to play in the final, if Arsenal qualified, if it meant he replaced Clichy. In the end it mattered little as they lost. But what would the Frenchman feel if Arsenal made it all the way to the final of Europe's most prestigious competition?

"From a personal point of view, I would love to play in a Champions' League final," he says. "But for the team I'd prefer Ashley Cole to play. He brings more to the game than I do at this stage. I've got time. I think it would be better with him, and easier to win it with him in the side. I'd hope to get to play in a game like that, of course." By then the copy will have hoped to have become the original.