Much of this mornings press build-up to tomorrows game is drawn to rehashing Alan Pardew’s comments about a lack of Englishmen at Arsenal, “It was a shame that there was not an Englishman in that Arsenal team”, at the time of the last meeting of the two sides in February. Incidentally, that was the match which gave birth to this blog on its previous home, a chance to vent my spleen about that particular performance and just about everything under the sun footballing wise since. The 2 - 3 defeat is never to be forgotten because of Sol Campbell’s decision to leave the ground at half-time and the following days / weeks filled with all the gory details of his personal problems.
Arsene yesterday criticised the decision by FIFA / FIFPro to reach an accord that by 2010 six of the starting line-ups will be homegrown players, something that would hit Arsenal hard but equally Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United. Looking ahead to this weekends fixtures, it is conceivable that Arsenal will have one possibly two, Englishmen in their XI, Hoyte will start due to the injuries to Eboue and Lauren whilst Walcott could start if there were an injury crisis. Manchester United will start with Neville, Ferdinand, Scholes and Rooney, Chelsea have Terry, Cole and Lampard, possibly Joe Cole whilst Liverpool have Steven Gerrard. Looking at that list, in four years time only Ferdinand and Rooney will still be playing at United whilst the remainder could still be there but with Chelsea you never know, they could well have been sold.
The Times this morning notes that Arsene has signed 7 Englishmen in his time at Arsenal; my guess is that list is, Richard Wright, Francis Jeffers, Sol Campbell, Theo Walcott and frankly at this hour the other three escape me, unless they refer to players like Gilbert and Hoyte who are effectively youth products. In any case, it is fair to say that Wenger has only had two successful English signings, Campbell and Walcott. The remainder have not lived up to expectations, particularly Jeffers and Wright whose careers have not been on an upward trajectory since leaving the club.
Wenger stated, “I feel that football bodies have to care about the game,” Wenger said. “And at that level of the game, it means that you shouldn’t protect mediocrity. I would never like to think that someone will sit on the bench, even though they are better than someone else, just because he has not got the right passport. If you love football, you should not act in this way. This is what I fight for. I would prefer to say to a player, ‘You make £4 million a year because you are good enough’ rather than, ‘I give you £2 million because you have the right passport’.” Which you cannot argue with, nor his observation that it is about quality which says more about the state of the English game than any impassioned pleadings from Gordon Taylor or any English manager. Wenger believes in paying a player well, irrespective of where he is from, arguing that this is his responsibility to the fans.
It is not difficult to see FIFA’s reasoning on this though. They are primarily concerned with International Football, despite protestations to the otherwise. Even more, they are focussed on the World Cup which has been a shining light for mediocrity for about the last twenty four years. They need something to improve the standard of that competition, believing this to be the path to that goal. It is not. If an Englishman is good enough, he will be signed by Arsene. The problem is the style of play he wants requires a certain type of player and to be honest, there are few if any English players who can cope with it. Walcott is a rarity because if you consider the current England team only Robinson and Gerrard would be players I would be happy seeing at Arsenal.
The other side of this question is what do the fans want? I’ll tell you - success for their club, success for their international team but not at the expense of our clubs. We want our cake and we want to eat it. Now. Not tomorrow. Now. I would like to see more Englishmen in the side for if they are in Arsenal’s team, they will be in the England team, they have to be that good to displace the current starting XI at the club. I do not want to see more Englishmen who are inferior to the current starting XI, taking their places as a result of this dictat from Sepp Blatter, a man who if he had a good idea, it would die of loneliness. We, supporters, pays our money to be entertained and see our team win not have some false imposition to make a level playing field. I’m with Arsene on this one.
That said the world of football politics is never clear. A couple of small flies are already in the ointment on this; firstly, Blatter will not be in office at the end of the timescale mentioned, hopefully by 2010 he’ll have buggered off although I have a sneaky feeling he will want to stay if the South African World Cup is not descended into complete farce. Secondly, the European Union will be required to sanction the law change that flies straight in the face on integration. Football may argue that it is a special case but it won’t be easy. Maybe plenty of palm will be greased along the way. And last but by no means least, the G-14 will not be happy, looking set for another fight with FIFA. Not so much building the bridges as David Dein wanted, more burning them faster than ever before.
More Shameless Self-Publicity
The music section has moved to a new home for those expecting to see it right about here; hop over to Yogi’s Music Blog to get the latest gig, yesterday was Electronic at Wembley 1991.
