The "no english players" bollocks that people beli

[northbankbren]

Just been in the local paper shop where the owners young son is a gooner, always have a chat with him about the team. We were talking about the keeper situation, and Schezny when an old northern bloke walking in (fella was well in his 70's).

"Dont tell me you lot support the russians do yer?"

"No we're Arsenal" said the owners son.

"Arsenal, you've got no bloody English"................WHAT?????????????

I immediatly informed him that when fit we have 3 regulars in the england squad...3 england internationals.

"Who are they?"

"Walcott, Wilshere and Gibbs."

"Ok but its not many" was his response.

"Who do you support?"

"Leeds"

"We've got more than you lot". I then asked him to name as many teams as he could with 3 england internationals.

And when it came down to it, the list wasnt a long one. I think he was surprised by my reaction, and seemed to convieniently forget about our 3 England internationals

Now it never got heated and this bloke was quite a nice fella to be fair, but its just the immediate nonsense reaction of "You dont have any English" which really bugs me. Yes we are not overwhelmed with english players in our squad, but the ones that are their are of an extremely high standard.

You can go up and down the premier league and look at squads FULL of English players, but they cant get anywhere near the Internationl team because they are not good enough, yet we have 3 kids who have walked into the international scene as teenagers, 3 pure talents and amazing prospects, BUT everyone seems to forget them so some reason.

No English.............FUCK RITE OFF.

[mikeyb772001]

Plenty of british players in the squad now and in the youth team. Shame were run by a clueless twat!

[Henry Norris 1913]

its because all english players are so technically gifted and don't dive of course. our horrible frenchies have ruined the state of english football

[g88ner]

To be fair, Gibbs and Wilshere have only just started their England careers, so I'm not surprised many fans don't consider them straight away.

And, of course, prior to them, Arsenal have had a serious lack of English players, so our reputation for having few/no English players is deserved, and will take time to erase.

[LDB]

We give English talent plenty of chances but most simply dont make it; the pennants and bentleys of this world. This is the first full generation of Wengerite youngsters and its looking promising; Wilshere, JET and Gibbs being the stand-outs.

It is true to say we rarely if ever buy established English players but there are numerous reasons for that;

-The price
- The English system isnt conducive to the qualities our setup values; most have had any nous coached out of their game by people who just want them to run around like headless chickens for 90 minutes and show "committment".

This is one of my personal topics of contention, i would like nothing more then to see the English game dominate world football but until we shed ourselves of the unbelivable arrogance that dates back to our tag as "inventors of football", realise that our system is far from perfect and learn from other countries we will be stuck in this perpetual cycle of delusion.

[northbankbren]

To be fair, Gibbs and Wilshere have only just started their England careers, so I'm not surprised many fans don't consider them straight away.

And, of course, prior to them, Arsenal have had a serious lack of English players, so our reputation for having few/no English players is deserved, and will take time to erase.

Your spot on there g88ner, wilshere and gibbs are just comming through, but how many teams up and down the country are actually producing up and coming talent to the extent of these two. Its will take time for this reputation to die down and the above mentioned can go a long way to helping that.

If you look at the england squad, and the teams they play for, the majority have been sold to their club.

Also a major point his, how many clubs up and down the country are producing the talent like we are, people forget the amount of english players who play in the premier league that came from our books (yes they didnt get the chance with us), but people seem to forget that they were from the Arsenal accademy.

We have produced more English talent over the last 10 years, than any other club.

[flash gunner]

To be fair, Gibbs and Wilshere have only just started their England careers, so I'm not surprised many fans don't consider them straight away.

And, of course, prior to them, Arsenal have had a serious lack of English players, so our reputation for having few/no English players is deserved, and will take time to erase.

Spot on g88ner. Its going to take a few years to shift the image of us having no English players

[CPHANMER]

I couldn't give a flying f*ck if we had no english players in the whole of our squad to be honest. What England do has nothing to do with my team. England have been crap for 40 years and during that time, well up to 1997, all english sides had 95% english players and look where it got the national side.... KNOWHERE..... If this was in any other profession it would be considred racist. If i went into my work tomorrow and told everyone who wasn't British to f off cause they don't belong here i'd get lynched...

[Only One Tony Adams]

I couldn't give a flying f*ck if we had no english players in the whole of our squad to be honest. What England do has nothing to do with my team. England have been crap for 40 years and during that time, well up to 1997, all english sides had 95% english players and look where it got the national side.... KNOWHERE..... If this was in any other profession it would be considred racist. If i went into my work tomorrow and told everyone who wasn't British to f off cause they don't belong here i'd get lynched...

Best post in this thread...............

[1989]

I couldn't give a flying f*ck if we had no english players in the whole of our squad to be honest. What England do has nothing to do with my team. England have been crap for 40 years and during that time, well up to 1997, all english sides had 95% english players and look where it got the national side.... KNOWHERE..... If this was in any other profession it would be considred racist. If i went into my work tomorrow and told everyone who wasn't British to f off cause they don't belong here i'd get lynched...

Yeah I'd rather have a bunch of foreigners who come only for the money and have no passion for the club.

As an English club I feel we're under a responsibility to field English/British players on a regular or semi regular basis. You won't get more committed people than the home grown boys. Look at Wilshere at the swamp, he played like someone who cares about the club and knows what it means to play in a NLD.

My point is not about lack of talent etc, but I feel English players in general are more passionate than their foreign counter parts.

[mcdowell42]

I couldn't give a flying f*ck if we had no english players in the whole of our squad to be honest. What England do has nothing to do with my team. England have been crap for 40 years and during that time, well up to 1997, all english sides had 95% english players and look where it got the national side.... KNOWHERE..... If this was in any other profession it would be considred racist. If i went into my work tomorrow and told everyone who wasn't British to f off cause they don't belong here i'd get lynched...

Yeah I'd rather have a bunch of foreigners who come only for the money and have no passion for the club.

As an English club I feel we're under a responsibility to field English/British players on a regular or semi regular basis. You won't get more committed people than the home grown boys. Look at Wilshere at the swamp, he played like someone who cares about the club and knows what it means to play in a NLD.

My point is not about lack of talent etc, but I feel English players in general are more passionate than their foreign counter parts.

Guys like shawcross and robinson from bolton yeah wish we had them

[nexum5me]

ashley cole really showed the difference local, loyal, lifelong arsenal fans can make when they get the chance

[MM99]

I couldn't give a flying f*ck if we had no english players in the whole of our squad to be honest. What England do has nothing to do with my team. England have been crap for 40 years and during that time, well up to 1997, all english sides had 95% english players and look where it got the national side.... KNOWHERE..... If this was in any other profession it would be considred racist. If i went into my work tomorrow and told everyone who wasn't British to f off cause they don't belong here i'd get lynched...

Yeah I'd rather have a bunch of foreigners who come only for the money and have no passion for the club. .

Yeah a good thing that Ashley Cole didn't leave for money ey! And thank god that he showed passion and loyalty to us in not leaving us for one of our rivals!

[JMascis666]

And to a lesser extent look at the loyalty we got from Bentley and Pennant.

[Dan_85]

Jamie Redknapp on Sky's highlights show a minute ago;

"Another criticism you could have of Arsenal is they've not enough English players"

What the absolute f*ck has that got to do with anything that happened tonight?! Twat.