PL: Portsmouth vs Arsenal | 13/05/07

[USArsenal]

you meanr the "currently without a club" Richard Wright? heh

 

[RC8]

5. Ade and Baptista not putting their chances away has nothing to do with an "English mentality". They've tried hard enough, Ade is young, he might improve, Baptista is old, he might not. It's as simple as that.

Ade is 23, Baptista is 25. I know what you're trying to say but to call a 25-year old "old" is just ridiculous. If he's old then Gilberto is ancient and Jens should be deaf, senile, bedridden and incontinent!

You are right, he is "older". But he has shown no signs of being able to cope with this league, so the sentence you quoted is not only related to their age, but also their skill. If Baptista was 23, he could have 4 years to adapt before reaching his peak. That would be OK. But I can't see him improving if he stayed, as he wouldn't get enough chances, and only would have 2 years.

 

[Lukazan]

There is really nothing to backup the whole 'the English have more heart, grit, determination and passion' bollocks. It's what years of clueless commentary and punditry have had us believe.

Does anyone believe these same people would say anything different about players like Toure, Carvalho or C.Ronaldo if they were English? Nope.

 

[number_0]

well even if we get an englishman or 2 it wont help us as i see they will struggle with the life in the locker room, Cashley said it once, and was told the Walcott hardly talks in training.

teams like manure or chelsea can get englishman and make them successful because they have an english backbone for their team, while our only englishmen are 17 year olds playing in the reserves.

english are not nessecerily crap players, but us particulerly they cant/wont play for , because of the amount of forign people.

 

[Rohit]

Walcott being quiet in the dressing room has nothing to do with there being more foreigners in the squad. He is a shy, quiet lad by nature and was quiet even in Germany, when with the World Cup squad.

Also it's not like the rest of our squad is from Africa, or Holland or France or one particular country, when a foreign player is bought in he has to get accustomed to more factors than what an Englishman would. Even for a foreigner the squad is full of foreigners and the conditions are foreign too, not so for someone English.

 

[Shredder]

If british players have the winning mentality and grit, how come they never perform in the world cup? That's a team full of English internationals currently lead by an English coach. I don't see them taking the world by storm with their winning mentality and grit.

I see them stumbling out competitions. The thing is - nationality should never be the measure of quality.

Yet English players are crap because of their nationality?

As usual, this debate is going nowhere because there clearly isn't a right or wrong answer. But I do not like the argument that English players are crap because they've only won one World Cup. So have France. Do we need to stop buying French too? Forget about players from Spain or Holland, they must obviously be weak.

We need more Uruguayans if you ask me.

Biggus has it spot on (unfortunately for Arsenal's "Englishness") - all the English players that are good enough play for Man Utd, Chelsea or Liverpool and/or would cost too much to buy.

 

[Rohit]

I don't think anyone ever suggested that English players are crap and the World Cup is no barometer for how good a player is, or it shouldn't be atleast. England teams performances at the World Cup were not indicative of player quality but of the 'teams' quality and reference to the world cup was only made because everyone harped about the English grit and determination which wasn't evident and hasn't been evident in recent English national teams.

It's just that even mediocre, average and good players are priced ridiculously and this hasn't started after the Abrahamovich era.

 

[Shredder]

It's just that even mediocre, average and good players are priced ridiculously and this hasn't started after the Abrahamovich era.

Oh, of course. I'm just thinking that maybe players with some actual premiership experience may not be a bad thing to pay a bit of a premium for. I don't know. (Not all players with premiership experience are English, obviously...)

Actually, I really can't decide upon what we need right now, squad-wise. People say we're crap at converting chances - "well, just wait for Henry and Van Persie to come back". Some people say we're crap at defending - "but Senderos, Clichy, Djourou and Eboue are so young, they'll get much better". Yet more say we need winger - some think Hleb is the second coming of Jesus, just waiting to explode when Henry and Van Persie get back. Lehmann's obviously too old and clearly past it - "but he was awesome just last year"...

If we decide to add, is the money even there for a splurge?

(I was obviously going over the top on purpose with that previous post by the way.)

 

[Alfonso]

England have actually been very unlucky in international tournments over the past 20 years. Im no England supporter, but they certainly could have won at least one tournment in this time.

1986-Hand Of God.

1990-Lost on penalities in the semi final.

1996-Lost on penalities in the semi final. If they won that match they would have won Euro 96.

1998-Lost on penalities in the last 16, after Beckham got wrongly sent off.

2002-Lost to a bizare Ronaldinho goal. If they won that match they would have won this World Cup.

2004-Lost on penalites to Portugal, after their best player Rooney got injured during the game.

2006-Lost on penalities to Portugal in the quarter finals.

In some cases they have been a penalty shootout away from potentially and realistically winning the whole thing.

Sometimes it just not meant to be. Before last year's WC, Italy had a similar unlucky record since 82, and no one can say they never had passion, grit and determination as players and as a footballing nation.

 

[RockyRocastle]

I dont think there is any doubt that having some local, homegrown talent that was in the Gerrard/Carragher/Terry mode etc would be a huge benefit to us.

I dont think it is that big of a deal that we dont have any English players, but I definitely think we would benefit from having a few around the place - but not if they become apart of this new chav culture. See what that has done to West Ham.

 

[thegame24]

im just suprised how a country like england produces so many **** players, not even average just **** players.

Gerrard is the only guarantee to get in our team, the rest can all be argued and that isnt a good thing.

England have to fix up and bring up players the way they do on the continent. wenger is going about it the right way, im very interested in seeing new english talents brought up the arsenal way.

 

[IBL]

One recent Arsenal talent I wish we had kept hold of was Bentley, shame he had to leave in such a distasteful fashion, he could have given Hleb a real run for his money this season at RM

 

[thegame24]

Bentley not all that and hes a huge **** who didnt respect wenger or arsenal

 

[EMIR8_SOLDIER]

RC8 well i dont think you understand me but thats life...look mate, im saying vieira learnt from the likes of adams,nutsey,wright etc... who had that determination and mentality...would he of been who is is today if it wernt for the likes of them, i think no??? its general knowledge that everybody learns something everyday
would diaby be a better player if viera was here, yes as he would of taught him how to adapt because of who vieira learnt it from
the likes of chris morgan have the grit that our players do not have...english players like jagielka can be part of our team and teach youngsters some grit as hes younger than morgan
no hiding, these 2 seasons,especially this one is wengers 1st squad he made by himself(thats why thyre called 3rd generation since he came) and they havent won nothing

its simple, if it wasnt for the english players we had when wenger came, arsenal wouldnt be where they are now...he just inherited a great squad with a winning mentality and he took it from there
weneger is stubborn and wouldnt buy prem englis players, dont know why, but its a fact if he did it would improve every players attributes...for instance if i was a foreigner and i went to italy, i want to know how to play italian football by learning from italian players...arsenal players dont have that experience and it shows big time..for instance pompe, can not get a needed win
these new guys dont have it yet and its upsetting because we need to win something next season as if not ill be calling for wengers head

 

[RC8]

RC8 well i dont think you understand me but thats life...look mate, im saying vieira learnt from the likes of adams,nutsey,wright etc... who had that determination and mentality...would he of been who is is today if it wernt for the likes of them, i think no??? its general knowledge that everybody learns something everyday
would diaby be a better player if viera was here, yes as he would of taught him how to adapt because of who vieira learnt it from
the likes of chris morgan have the grit that our players do not have...english players like jagielka can be part of our team and teach youngsters some grit as hes younger than morgan
no hiding, these 2 seasons,especially this one is wengers 1st squad he made by himself(thats why thyre called 3rd generation since he came) and they havent won nothing

its simple, if it wasnt for the english players we had when wenger came, arsenal wouldnt be where they are now...he just inherited a great squad with a winning mentality and he took it from there
weneger is stubborn and wouldnt buy prem englis players, dont know why, but its a fact if he did it would improve every players attributes...for instance if i was a foreigner and i went to italy, i want to know how to play italian football by learning from italian players...arsenal players dont have that experience and it shows big time..for instance pompe, can not get a needed win
these new guys dont have it yet and its upsetting because we need to win something next season as if not ill be calling for wengers head

I get what you are saying, and I personally would love to have a couple of homegrown English players in our squad, but the fact is, we can't have them. Morgan and the likes would demand first team football, which we can't give them (and I would hate having that thug in our team). That's why so many English youngsters have left us, and although it is a shame, it is not in our hands. We have young Theo developing, and he has shown patience, which will get him far in the near future, but the fact is that the rest of the English players that are skilled enough to play for Arsenal, are not within our reach economically-wise, and therefore Wenger's stubbornness is not to blame. We made a bid on Shaun Wright Phillips, but it didn't work out, we made a bid on a 16 year old from the championship, and it ended up costing more than 6 million pounds. Some players are quite and simply, out of our reach.

Pompey needed a win as well, but couldn't get it. Is that also because of their lack of winning mentality? We couldn't win the Pompey game because Baptista missed a penalty and then he threw away 2 sitters, it's not rocket science. We need to improve, yes, we need to be more dominant, yes, and we need to have a better counter-attacking approach to the one we currently use, as Kel has pointed out, but right now, there is nothing Wenger can do to bring those English players, and therefore he has to look for quality abroad and let the players adapt for a season or two. It's a pain, but it's our only alternative.

 

[Alfonso]

Chris Morgan? He's got grit and determination and all that jazz, but we do have some standards you know!

 

[Biggus]

RC8 well i dont think you understand me but thats life...look mate, im saying vieira learnt from the likes of adams,nutsey,wright etc... who had that determination and mentality...would he of been who is is today if it wernt for the likes of them, i think no??? its general knowledge that everybody learns something everyday
would diaby be a better player if viera was here, yes as he would of taught him how to adapt because of who vieira learnt it from


the likes of chris morgan have the grit that our players do not have...english players like jagielka can be part of our team and teach youngsters some grit as hes younger than morgan
no hiding, these 2 seasons,especially this one is wengers 1st squad he made by himself(thats why thyre called 3rd generation since he came) and they havent won nothing

its simple, if it wasnt for the english players we had when wenger came, arsenal wouldnt be where they are now...he just inherited a great squad with a winning mentality and he took it from there
weneger is stubborn and wouldnt buy prem englis players, dont know why, but its a fact if he did it would improve every players attributes...for instance if i was a foreigner and i went to italy, i want to know how to play italian football by learning from italian players...arsenal players dont have that experience and it shows big time..for instance pompe, can not get a needed win
these new guys dont have it yet and its upsetting because we need to win something next season as if not ill be calling for wengers head

We should get him in as a specialist "Grit coach" Come to think of it whats Vinnie Jones doing now? He'd whip our bunch of foreign faggots into shape- they don't like it up 'em. :wink:

 

[EMIR8_SOLDIER]

so would joey barton lol .... dont think eboue would want to be diving in training anymore especially in the early morning near barton...dont get me wrong wenger has bought english players but which one that are established and improved our squad?? the only one that generates into my muddy mind is SC23 the rest were promising players

 

[Biggus]

But Arsène has bought many fine English players...Richard Wright, Francis Jeffers, Jermaine Pennant.

 

[EMIR8_SOLDIER]

yes i know, but what did they bring do you see what i mean they wernt established yet....sol campbell if i recall was wengers only big english signing..how about reading my post properly bruv before you start shooting the gun..i know he bought english players and i addressed that, but did they improve our squad, no...just campbell