Hey party people oaf12 here and welcome to Suburban Gooners!
Its been a while since I last blogged (shock horror) and also a while since our last podcast. We decided to take a little pod break in the off season but the SG podcast will be back soon so don’t panic (not that anyone was, I’m sure).
Anyway, with emotional Chris (that’s what I like to call him, but don’t tell him – he’ll get emotional) sunning himself on holiday it has been left to myself and Ben to fill your need for football reading. Therefore, I apologise for the lack of the usual daily posts Chris ‘the blog machine’ usually provides you with.
A lot has happened since our last podcast, like an entire world cup, oh and we signed a certain Mr Sanchez – yeah baby! With more to follow, hopefully!
Now that the WC is over (big congrats to the German Gooners btw) I thought I’d take a look at all this complaining around how the EPL is ruining our national game – poppycock in my opinion! Lol is used the word poppycock :)
A lot of focus has been on introducing quotas around British or English players, I’m really not sure about this.
If these quotas were introduced around the number of players in your squad (such as the home-grown scenario) certain clubs *cough* citeh *cough* would just buy half decent English players, at a premium, to make up the numbers (Jack Rodwell), thus actually ruining said players development and further weakening the teams outside the top 4 – they’d be left with the bottom of the barrel like that hoofy centre back at Stoke.
You could then argue that there should be a quota on how many players are in the starting line-up….not for me I’m afraid sonny!
Imagine a scenario where you had to field 5 British players. So, for example, Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott, Ox, Gibbs – one would presume that most managers will fill the other six places with non-British players who may be better, but certainly wouldn’t cost as much. What happens when the next promising youngster looks like making it? One wouldn’t be crazy in thinking that the manager wouldn’t ‘risk’ them – keep that exciting prospect on standby just in case one of our quota gets injured. Not sure that would be great for them. Plus those idiots at Old Trafford would probably double Shreks wages again!
The other issue I can foresee would be the top teams pillaging the lesser teams youth system. This could cripple the smaller clubs in terms of sales and would lead to stockpiles of young British talent at the bigger clubs – farcical!
My main reasoning for not wanting a quota system is that, in my opinion, if you’re good enough – you will play! Regardless of nationality! I’m excited that the premier league has a plethora of talent on display and that it is multinational. Top players won’t want to come here if we make them out to be a problem. If anything they probably help – if you ask Carl Jenkinson if he’d rather have been learning from that French guys with the dreads that has joined the mercenaries at citeh or Justin Hoyte, I’m sure you could make an educated guess at the answer.
If England really want to make an impact they need to do a Germany and start again! However, they also need to get the obvious stuff right i.e. don’t build a team around a team that chocked under pressure, had a biter that carried them through the season and didn’t win anything – surely that’s obvious!
How Henderson played more World Cup games than Wilshere is beggar’s belief. I can understand the Gibbs injury prone worry but how many players were never getting a game anyway? Take a left back that plays champions league football!
The real reason we are scared to start again and field are youngsters must be that we don’t have enough talent, so we go halfway. Imagine an international team running at Shaw, Evans, Smalling, Jenkinson – scary thought!
In conclusion, I don’t think clubs should be forced into quotas. It’s Wenger’s job to make Arsenal better, not England.
That’s the job of the FA – get the coaching sorted, learn from others, observe best practice and invest in grass roots….in the meantime, if Gibbs, Wilshere, Ox and Walcott are fit, make sure they bloody well play!
Sorry for the rambling :)
Cheers all
oaf out!
