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John Simkin

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It is also worth remembering the English players that Arsenal bought up in their youth system who are now playing at other Premiership teams as they were not good enough for us - Steve Sidwell at Chelsea, Harper at Reading, Pennant at Liverpool, Bentley at Blackburn, even Ashley Cole at Chelsea.

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It is also worth remembering the English players that Arsenal bought up in their youth system who are now playing at other Premiership teams as they were not good enough for us - Steve Sidwell at Chelsea, Harper at Reading, Pennant at Liverpool, Bentley at Blackburn, even Ashley Cole at Chelsea.

Surely, the most important thing about this list is that Wengler was unable or unwilling to develop the talents of these men. As he has said in the past, he does not trust "British" players.

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It is also worth remembering the English players that Arsenal bought up in their youth system who are now playing at other Premiership teams as they were not good enough for us - Steve Sidwell at Chelsea, Harper at Reading, Pennant at Liverpool, Bentley at Blackburn, even Ashley Cole at Chelsea.

Surely, the most important thing about this list is that Wengler was unable or unwilling to develop the talents of these men. As he has said in the past, he does not trust "British" players.

You are quite right John - Aresnal used to be a collection of soft southern jessees. Now they are a collection of soft foreign jessees :lol:

What do you make of Sepp Blatter's recent comments??

http://www.arsenalpies.tv/2007/10/how_a_se...iendly_ars.html

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Guest Gary Loughran

Harry Redknapp is today blaming the lack of young English talent on the 'X-Box culture'. He cites the local park kick around has given way to the X-Box and other computer games, leading to a reduction in young lads playing footy.

" Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp insists Premiership managers are being forced to go offshore for talent because there is no longer the quality running around in England's junior leagues.

"I'm fed up with managers being made scapegoats for the state of our domestic game," he said in his column for The Sun. "The English working class is turning its back on football - and that is not my fault.

"I do have a lot of foreign players at Portsmouth but believe me I'd love nothing more than to field a team of 11 so-called 'home-grown' lads born within the city limits.

"But it has become harder and harder to find enough kids of the kind of quality required to make the grade without buying an air ticket."

Redknapp added: "It may sound old and corny but when I was growing up, working class lads like me in the east end lived and breathed football.

"Now I rarely see a kickabout in the park. All I see are the dazzling lights of bedroom windows from the glare of TVs and computers. It seems football cannot compete with an X-Box."

The former West Ham and Southampton boss suggests that players from poverty-stricken parts of Africa are now the ones with the motivation needed to be successful in the game.

"Maybe they have the hunger and drive that working class boys of England had 30 years ago but now is replaced by video game passion," he said. "

I think both John and I alluded to some of these concerns in the West Ham thread near here. The last line above is probably what I took about 3 times as long to say in previous comment in said WHUFC thread.

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It is also worth remembering the English players that Arsenal bought up in their youth system who are now playing at other Premiership teams as they were not good enough for us - Steve Sidwell at Chelsea, Harper at Reading, Pennant at Liverpool, Bentley at Blackburn, even Ashley Cole at Chelsea.

Surely it is not the case that these players were not good enough for Arsenal. Other than Cole, they had to go to other clubs to get their chance in the Premier League. This says less about their talent but more about Wengler prejudice against British players.

Why is it clubs like West Ham, Manchester United and Manchester City can produce internationals via their academies but Arsenal can't do this? The Sunday Times published a good article about the Manchester City Academy yesterday:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle2652415.ece

The video is a montage of goals scored by Manchester City’s academy side. Jim Cassell’s eyes flick, intent and searching as a jeweller examining diamonds.

“Play the ball, give it . . . frees himself. Watch this run. Lovely. Great goal. Local lad, got a chance if he fills out,” Jim murmurs, his gaze not leaving the screen. “Now see this goal. Ooh magnificent. Look at the awareness. Good leap on the back post . . .”

Cassell is City’s academy director and stands in the canteen of its home at Platt Lane. An honours board bears the names of the 25 players who have graduated into the first team since Cassell set up the academy in 1998. There are 26 portraits lining the wall.

“He’ll make it,” says Cassell as the footage shows different boys. “There’s another with a chance . . . that one’s a City player, guaranteed.” He asks that their names not be revealed. The public will have to wait for the answer to the question written in portrait No 26, where the face is blank: Who’s next?

Platt Lane is in Moss Side amid streets that, but for the Bangladeshi grocers and mobile-phone emporiums, could be straight from the television series Life on Mars. Plenty of Premier League academies are more salubrious, many have annual budgets in excess of Platt Lane’s £2m, several boast better facilities, more recruits, bigger staffs. But none can compete with the output of this place.

“We’ve never won a national trophy and yet we have produced more first-team players than any other academy,” says Cassell. “We sacrifice our teams sometimes because the priority is the development of individuals. If after 10 years we had four FA Youth Cups but no players, we wouldn’t have done very well, but we’ve brought through 25 to the first team, 24 of whom are still playing with us or in league football. Six are internationals.

“We’ve recouped £31m in transfers and, if you add Micah Richards, Michael Johnson, Nedum Onuoha, Kasper Schmeichel and Stephen Ireland, provided another £40m-worth of players for the current City squad.”

Two of Cassell’s cubs are England Lions: Richards, who arrived from Oldham Athletic as a 14-year-old looking “just like Bambi” and lacking a sense of his best position, and Shaun Wright-Phillips, whose conversion into a footballer of substance was even more unlikely.

“Recruitment is the most important part, and I, and our recruitment director, Barry Poynton, assess every player personally and put our necks on the block for each we sign,” says Cassell.

“In Shaun’s case a scout contacted Barry to say this kid had been released by Nottingham Forest. We brought him up with his brother, Bradley. He was 15 and Bradley was 11, but of course the moment they walked in my office I assumed Shaun was the younger one. We played Shaun in a game against Port Vale. He was very small but did all the right things. We gave him another game against Tranmere. He wasn’t greatly effective, but again did everything right. We offered him a scholarship and the rest is history.

“Soon I was saying to Joe Royle: ‘There’s a kid here, you’ll love him’. On the first day of preseason training, Joe came back to me and said: ‘Your little boy was great. He stayed at the front as long as he possibly could’. And that’s Shaun’s attitude. He just loves football. I don’t think Chelsea or England have yet seen the best of him.

“The biggest compliment I could give Shaun and his brother is you’d love them as your sons.”

The products of Platt Lane “have to be good players but good human beings, too”, he adds. Its 160 boys, aged nine to 18, are fined if they swear, are not allowed to wear earrings or caps and play with their shirts tucked in. This academy is old school.

Cassell, a youth player at Manchester United under Sir Matt Busby, believes in the principles of that era. For him, talent comes before that depressing mantra of many Premier League coaches involved in development: pace and power.

While many clubs stuff their systems with foreign teenagers, the first place City’s scouts look is their own doorstep.

“The first thing some people in football say is: ‘How big is he?’ Well, what was Shaun Wright-Phillips, 5ft 1in? I ask another question: Can they sort the job out? Can they actually play?’ ” Cassell says.

“We’ve got a Slovak lad here, a really great talent, whose parents moved to England when he was 14. Sometimes you have to go further afield if you have an age group where you’re short on good players, but in an ideal world we’d only go with local talent. Our scouting network is small and concentrates on this area.

“In the great Celtic team that won the European Cup in 1967, all 11 players came from within 30 miles of Celtic Park. You could say football was different then, but look at the current big players: Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard – they all came through as players at their local club. The great Manchester United crop, except David Beckham, were local kids.”

What does England’s foremost star-finder look for? “Something a young player is not going to lose. If you have a superb left foot, for instance, you won’t lose that. If you’ve got Joey Barton’s determination, Micah Richards’s athleticism, Stephen Ireland’s awareness, Shaun Wright-Phillips’s agility and attitude, anything like that they won’t lose and you can develop a player around.

“Sir Trevor Brooking is right to be concerned about foreigners of ordinary standard taking up places in first teams and in academies. We’re a nation that produces footballers and if you look the talent’s still there.”

Cassell and his staff are at Platt Lane from 8.30am until 8pm except on Thursdays – “our day off, our Jack Nicholson day: As Good As It Gets”.

All the graft, all the values of Cassell and doggedness of Poynton have come together in Michael Johnson, a 19-year-old midfielder of unusual poise, who has been a first-team fixture this season under Sven-Göran Eriksson, scoring goals against Derby County and Aston Villa, and seems the next academy starlet set to become a supernova.

“Michael cruises around the pitch. He reminds me of a barracuda patrolling his area. Other fish make way,” says Cassell. “He’s learnt to add the short ball to the long ball. His energy is exceptional. He can spot danger, release passes early, he’s got a lovely touch and he’s starting to do what he didn’t do as a kid, score goals. He’s local, from Urmston. “ His dad’s very knowledgeable about football and wanted Michael to experience variety, so he had a look at Crewe and Everton. Michael even went to PSV Eindhoven. He left us at 12 and this is where Barry deserves praise – he kept in touch with the family, and when Michael was 16 he came back to us. His first year was inept because he was slender and found it very hard to cope because of his growth, but we waited and he came into his own.

“Sven is a manager who knows young players and he’ll look after Michael. I’d be amazed if he doesn’t go on to play for our full national side.”

Cassell’s eyes are flicking again, this time to a practice session of under18 players beneath the window of his office. He smiles and thinks the same question that fills City’s fans with excitement and their rivals with trepidation: Who’s next?

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