‘6+5′ quota to ruin Wenger’s plans?

Well, it’s international week and that same story has been brought up once again. Sepp Blatter has said that he will put an idea forward suggesting that teams must field at least six home-grown players for every game. Now I can see where he’s coming from as the likes of Bentley, Muamba and Sidwell would still be here if they didn’t have so many good players in front of them at the time, but this would mean that we would have to play Theo Walcott every week. Now that’s not even worth thinking about. But seriously though, imagine if we had to play six homegrown players in our starting XI right now? Well, you wouldn’t be hearing much of that ‘ We are top of the League’ chant, that’s for sure.

Who says Arsenal don’t have any English players?

 

Picture courtesy of theFA.com

I’m sick of the argument that Arsenal have a team of foreigners and no English players whatsoever. Well, it’s true that Justin Hoyte and Theo Walcott are the only Englishmen in the first team, but look a little further down the line and you’ll see a whole host of English talent. The likes of Jay Simpson, Mark Randall and Kieran Gibbs are out on loan and then look at our current list of first-year scholars. With the exception of Gilles Sunu and James Shea (he’s Irish), then the rest are all English, and many have represented their country at Youth level. The likes of Henri Lansbury, Rhys Murphy and Kyle Bartley are some of the most talked about youngsters around, whilst those such as Jay Thomas, Tom Cruise, Sanchez Watt, Craig Eastmond and Anton Blackwood aren’t far behind. Some people say that our Academy is mainly foreign, but it’s clear that they have got their facts wrong. Even if these players don’t make it here, they will do well elsewhere. Look at the likes of David Bentley, who’s in the full England squad, and Fabrice Muamba who’s in the England u-21s. It could be argued that we buy many of these English players from other clubs, but that is only true for a few players such as Walcott, Freeman, Bartley and Blackwood. The likes of Lansbury and Murphy have been at the club for years and are likely to go on to reach the first team one day.

To back up my point, Sanchez Watt played an hour today as England won the Algarve tournament thanks to a 0-0 draw with Portugal,  Kyle Bartley didn’t feature. Meanwhile Kieran Gibbs is likely to feature for the England u-19s tonight, although Henri Lansbury may miss out because of injury.

So, remember, the next time a rival fan brings up the old argument of Arsenal not having enough English players, then tell them to look at our Academy and he might change his mind.