Yippee! The FA 'make an approach' for Jose. He's gonna say "hahahaha".
Spurs and Bolton do the shizzle in the UEFA Cup.
Owen to Man City for £8million
Shevchenko will be sent on loan in January, just as Drogba goes under the knife.
Billy Davies is being lined up to succeed Dave Jones at Cardiff.
Wolfsburg want to sign Jens Lehmann
Brentford boss Terry Butcher has 1 match to save his job.
QPR are in for Gavin Mahon of Watford and Darryl Murphy of Sunderland.
And tomorrow there's some matches. I don't really know what they are but I hope there's some goals.
The comedy defence brigade
did a job again last night. Way to communicate boys. Still, an almost guarantted second place in the group means we'll be playing ex-Champions League opposition. Can it be Rangers please?
Oh god yeah
I saw that piece of defending. :(
^
please can we play rangers.
Also - finishing second in the group means you play a much better team than if you finish third? I love the UEFA cup.
Drogba is having plastic surgery?!
Yes
his centre of gravity is being adjusted.
Brighton away tonight
Tricky game for us, especially after Tuesday night's no show. 4-4-2 please Colin.
the last person we need is Owen
i'd take Martins though
Platini
is ranting again about foreign players in England, and has singled us out again. Fair enough, I would like to see English players in our team, but I wouldn't want sub-standard English players in our team (yes, I'm looking at you Hoyte). He also said that wenger, 'doesn't develop talent, he buys it' which is a RIDICULOUS statement. So i guess Vieira, Petit, Henry, Anelka, Fabregas, Flamini etc etc were all the finished article when they came to us? Bollocks.
they were all bought though?
yes
but the way platini implied it was that wenger bought these players and that was that. They were ready.
then that's wrong
He buys talent and develops it.
precisely
and for someone of platini's position to say otherwise is ridiculous.
he may have been misquoted
on went on further to say the same thing but that bit is not used in the papers.
That's the main difference
between Wenger's foreign legion and the rest. They're brought over at an early age and nurtured & developed into world class footballers.
Sadly, a lot of other clubs think signing foreign journeymen who probably can't believe their luck at one last megabucks pay day will put them in the same bracket.
Which it doesn't of course...
yep
this is our reserve squad for this season. For anyone who thinks all of our kids are foreign, look at this
http://www.arsenal.com/squad.asp?thisNav=Reserves+and+Youth&lid=Reserves+Coaching+Staff&clid=4436
More than half are English or British. But like I said before, its who is good enough to make the step up.
Sanchez Watt is a great name
I like the one one is called Thomas Cruise (obviously avoiding calling himself Tom)
There was an interview with Dave Kitson
Recently, he watched Arsenal play Reading at U11 through to U15 level after he'd finished training.
They played games on half a pitch in 4 10 minute quarters.
He said the technique on show from the Arsenal kids was incredible and that 90% of them were English.
Our youth teams
have LOADS of English talent. You only have to look at the England U16 through to the U19 to see this. We give our chances to them, its whether they are good enough to make the step up or not. And I think we have been proved right with 99.9% of all English youngsters we released.
David Bentley
being the obvious exception
I don't think
we regret selling him one bit. He'll never play higher than Blackburn (which is still a good level)
To be fair though
when he was at Arsenal he was a centre forward. I saw him play for Norwich when he was on loan there as a striker and he looked like a fish out of water to be honest. Since he's been at Blackburn they've converted him to a right winger and he looks far from out of place playing in that position at the top level.
When he was at us
he was more of a Bergkamp style player. Probably wasn't his best position, but it was his attitude, not his talent, that made us sell him. The words 'Big fish in a small pond' have never been so apt.
same attitude
displayed by Pennant.
Indeed
and I think even Liverpool fans would agree he isn't setting their world on fire.
That's the thing
you see so many youth players who do wonders for England at junior levels but then they normally don't make the grade and usually end up in the lower leagues.
^this is true
even Wenger himself has said that there's tonnes of English kids coming through the ranks. In the next 2 or 3 years we'll probably see guys like Kieran Gibbs and Henri Lansbury make a similar breakthrough to Denilson, Traore et al last season.
Also, what was quite interesting
was a statistic in the Metro this morning saying that £ for £ Kevin Doyle was the best value striker in the Premiership costing £2,500 ish per goal.
That's alright
if you value it only on goals. I like my strikers to be more than just goal machines. I want stats on elbows in faces, number of irate defenders, assists, width of mouth during grin on celebration.
I'll take a wild guess
and say John Hartson is the best striker ever then.
It's between him, Kevin Davies and Lee Chapman.
The fact that I actually do think Lee Chapman is the best striker ever has no bearing on this whatsoever...
Nah
I'll take Kevin Francis. Only cost about 4p in transfer fees in his whole career.
Ideal striker attributes
Heading ability of Les Ferdinand.
Strength of Drogba.
Positional sense of Van Nistlerooy.
Technique of Van Basten.
Volleying of Mark Hughes.
Appearance of Micky Quinn.
Temperament of Di Canio.
Loyalty of Le Tissier.
Vision of Zidane.
Skill of Tevez
Celebration of Ketsbia
Home defending skills of Duncan Ferguson
Hobbies of Maradonna
Communication skills of Edmundo