Should Arsenals next signing be English?

COTR wrote:

poiuy1 wrote:so if they don't buy british why don't they produce british rather then robbing other teams of their young foreign players

arsenal are the most technical team in the league (by quite some distance)... to succeed in arsenal's team you need to have exceptional technical ability... defensive midfielder and centre back being about the only exceptions... not many young english players will be technically sufficient to meet arsenal's requirements... pennant is excellent but did not succeed at arsenal (probably because he was an idiot) but anyway this may be a reason why arsenal don't seem to have as many young english players breaking through....

@ tweedle.. who have they got... gilbert...walcott??????

Current British players

Ashley Cole
Justin Hoyte
Kerrea Gilbert
Matthew Connolly
Fabrice Muamba
Anthony Stokes

Reserves/youth

Lee Butcher
Ryan Garry
Paul Rodgers
Mitchell Murphy
Mark Randall

poiuy1 wrote:
the easy way out is to rob other teams youth systems.

No, the cheap way out is to rob other teams youth systems.

Man United have a significantly higher transfer budget than Arsenal.

punty wrote:

="sgoater"IMO it doesnt matter what the nationality if they love the club and give their all like Bergkamp did.

The only time City have fielded an all foreign 11 was vs U*d and we won 3-1.

nope you had sinclair playing goater, he scored remember and did'nt u have fowler playing aswell?

somebody said anton is'nt proven he is proving himself every game

but would cost 5m+

I meant when we beat U*d 3-1 at Maine Road when Goater score rtwice and Anelka got the first - we beat them 3-1 twice in the last few years with the 4-1 win in the middle.

Ribery has had more than 'one solitary good season' - when he was on loan at Galatasaray he played well.

He has played in total over 120 times in his league career - about four seasons-worth

obispo come on here... u really are not comparing ribery with davies are you... surely not... one part of a relegated defence.. the other player of the yr in france and part of a world cup final team

wenger clearly doesnt like spending big on defensive players as he fancies himself to be able to pick up cheap defensive players and train them to the required standard... it is of course much harder to score a goal than to defend so he must like to spend the larger sums on the extra quality you get from attacking players...

PS i think davies/ferdinand would be a great buy for arsenal.. but who else could you buy at CB for 10 million.. surely better players than davies

Mulletmassive wrote:

Current British players


Fabrice Muamba

I didnt know he was English, he looks very promising from what iv read about him. Bruce said he has been very impressive at Brum since he's gone there.

Tweedledum wrote:Why should anyone care?

They play the most attractive style of football in the league, it is Wengers fault that young English players aren't technically gifted enough?

The REAL issue is the need to invest in technical training at grass routes level -English kids are not allowed to express themselves and become bogged down in positional and tactical play....

Your right tweedle

The FA needs to invest at grass roots in order for our kids to end up on par with the overseas players. The clubs also should be doing more perhaps.

Sgoater1 wrote:

Mulletmassive wrote:

Current British players


Fabrice Muamba

Is he british i thought he was French ??

English

mullett/tweeds this is exactly what brooking has been saying but it doesn´t seem like he was given the power he originally thought to resolve these issues. one good start would be to ban kids below 14 from playing on full size picthes

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:
ban kids below 14 from playing on full size picthes

Ahh, so Arsenal's small pitch helped them develop technical players - back to long ball now then!

Sgoater1 wrote:

Mulletmassive wrote:

Current British players


Fabrice Muamba

Is he british i thought he was French ??

He has a british passport, but was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is a England youth international. He is at Birmingham on loan for the season.

Roger_Hunt wrote:

poiuy1 wrote:
the easy way out is to rob other teams youth systems.

No, the cheap way out is to rob other teams youth systems.

Man United have a significantly higher transfer budget than Arsenal.

Tell me where has Uniteds success come from ho,e grown players or big transfers

Paul Scholes
Ryan Giggs
beckham
Butt
the Nevilles

all came throught the youth system

we have a new generation coming through now the majority are British and Irish

players like

Gibson
Foster
Jones
R.Jones
Simpson
Bardsley
Campbell
Richardson
Eckersley
Evans
Eagles
Lee Martin

they are all reserves

As for Listing youth players and reserves thats appalling for Arsenal fans to have to do that

Mulletmassive wrote:

Tweedledum wrote:Why should anyone care?

They play the most attractive style of football in the league, it is Wengers fault that young English players aren't technically gifted enough?

The REAL issue is the need to invest in technical training at grass routes level -English kids are not allowed to express themselves and become bogged down in positional and tactical play....

Your right tweedle

The FA needs to invest at grass roots in order for our kids to end up on par with the overseas players. The clubs also should be doing more perhaps.

It should be down to the clubs as well clearly West ham United Citeh and Middlesborough don't have any problem prducing first team players.

bendetar is on loan he looks pretty good

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:mullett/tweeds this is exactly what brooking has been saying but it doesn´t seem like he was given the power he originally thought to resolve these issues. one good start would be to ban kids below 14 from playing on full size picthes

Yes brooking was looking into the development of the youngsters. From what I understand he was trying to introduce futsul for the youngsters, so that the can develop their technical ability. So you right that full length pitches should be banned for kids. It has gone tremendiously quite at the FA regarding this situation because I did believe brooking was the right man to do the job.

poiuy1 wrote:
Paul Scholes
Ryan Giggs
beckham
Butt
the Nevilles

all came throught the youth system

we have a new generation coming through now the majority are British and Irish

I know you'll disagree - but IMO the 'golden generation' has been proved a fluke now (and for me the Nevilles are only in there by association).

Since they broke through as a group over a couple of seasons you've only brought the odd youth player through who is international standard - Brown is the obvious example.

You think that there's a new generation waiting in the wings - I reckon you're over-optimistic.

Who honestly could care less about having English players in the team. Firstly, you want to see your team full of talented players and, secondly, you'd quite like to think that they're decent chaps. Right? I couldn't care less whether the player in an Arsenal shirt is English, Korean, Hungarian or Fijian as long as he's good enough. Maybe that's just me. Anyway, a lot of the English players out there are total idiots who I'm not sure I really want sullying the great red and white shirt. I hope Cole moves asap - what a w@nker prancing about like some 70s pimp. Ditto players like Barton and Pennant - you really want them in your teams shirt? I take the point that foreign players don't always stick around but look at Bergkamp for an example of superb service from a foreigner. It can happen.

Roger_Hunt wrote:

poiuy1 wrote:
Paul Scholes
Ryan Giggs
beckham
Butt
the Nevilles

all came throught the youth system

we have a new generation coming through now the majority are British and Irish

I know you'll disagree - but IMO the 'golden generation' has been proved a fluke now (and for me the Nevilles are only in there by association).

Since they broke through as a group over a couple of seasons you've only brought the odd youth player through who is international standard - Brown is the obvious example.

You think that there's a new generation waiting in the wings - I reckon you're over-optimistic.

not at all did you watch us whip Celtic? out play Ajax with a squad the average age of 22?

the ones that will make it are Johnny Evans 19 (outstanding pre season)

Simpson 19 attacking right back

Gibson 18 defensive midfielder

Foster 23 - next England number 1

Lee Martin 19 - voted player of the season at Antwerp despit eonly being there 5 months, has impressed paul Le guen and is ghoing to Rangers on loan

Ajax also had their youth team out I gather.

Let me put it in perspective - I am sure that one of your current youth players will end up an England international, but that's not enough to build a squad.

How many youth players have really established themselves in the first team since 1996/97?

poiuy1 wrote:

Mulletmassive wrote:

Tweedledum wrote:Why should anyone care?

They play the most attractive style of football in the league, it is Wengers fault that young English players aren't technically gifted enough?

The REAL issue is the need to invest in technical training at grass routes level -English kids are not allowed to express themselves and become bogged down in positional and tactical play....

Your right tweedle

The FA needs to invest at grass roots in order for our kids to end up on par with the overseas players. The clubs also should be doing more perhaps.

It should be down to the clubs as well clearly West ham United Citeh and Middlesborough don't have any problem prducing first team players.

Neither do we!

Cole, Sidwell, Gilbert, Pennant.....

Its just they're not good enough for us

This is my point Tweedle - there's a difference between producing a good Prem player and a potential Champions-League winning player.

Would United fans be happy with West Ham, Boro or Citeh's youth players in the Utd first team? I don't think so.

They'd have some of ours, no doubt.

Roger_Hunt wrote:This is my point Tweedle - there's a difference between producing a good Prem player and a potential Champions-League winning player.

Would United fans be happy with West Ham, Boro or Citeh's youth players in the Utd first team? I don't think so.

<waits quietly for the Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Rio Ferdinand comments>

West Ham ARE the best example of a consistently excellent youth system.

But doesnt it just prove the point that the 3 you mention are at other clubs now? And a great youth setup didnt stop WH getting relegated did it?

They shouldn't really care as they play the nicest football in the EPL. The english might be more loyal to english teams, like italians would be for italian, but what if someone like Real came in like they did for Owen, Cannavaro etc (I know cannavaro is a bit different)?

Arsenal they could do with a couple of physical players as they have suffered since the loss of vieira. As Real has demonstrated you don't win anything with a team full of "finesse" type players. They need some aggression and tough tackling, which gilberto gives, maybe flamini, but not many others. This used to be the english forte but these types of things seem also to have been lost amongst the midfielders and defenders. The best amongst the english seems to be hargreaves who plays at bayern.

i think that as long as arsene wenger consistently turns up brilliant young foreigners at knock down prices there is no reason to sign english. English players are often overpriced. For example toure is a brilliant defender and cost them practically nothing where as a defender such as rio, who is english, cost us millions or look at henry who cost the same amount as andy johnson but they are nowhere near the same level.

Welcome Keane is god nice to have another Redblood on the board

It's called Arsenal FC, not England FC , right? Ofcourse we would like to have english players but not if it affects the budget of the club. Someone pointed out that we are willing to spend 13 mil on ribery but don't want to pay 10 mil for davies. Am i not right in saying attckers are generally more expensive than defenders? Also say if ribery was english and was one of the best players in the league playing for a top four side last season,went to the world cup in germany and played well as a regular helping england reach the finals, don't u think he would be worth atleast 25 mil ? ofcourse he would coz the press will start hailing him as the next maradona.

As an Arsenal fan.... having a few English players would be good but not necessary.

Given the transfer budget Wenger has had over the years, He could have either built a comfortable Mid-table team with full of English players or a Championship challenging team consisting primarily of imports.

I do agree that if we sign foreigners there will always be speculation about them leaving. Reyes is one prime example. Noone can deny that he is incredibly talented. There is no left sided winger in England who can even come close to his talent. But unfortunately he never lived up to his potential in Arsenal.

But then for every Reyes and Anelka, we have had a Dennis Bergkamp or a Thierry Henry or even Patrick Vieira. Though the latter left, but he did give us nine great years.

The question is how much premium can you afford for an English player of same quality as that of an Import. United have a very high threshold, we dont. They can afford to pay 18 million for Carrick when similar player in continent might cost only 8. We cant afford to do.

As such I say British players are nice to have, but not at the cost of quality or budget.