Arsenal Ruining English Football

I think El Tel is really on to something...look at the bagful of World Cups that England won in the '70s and '80s, before the evil Premiership and Johnny Foreigner came along.

Every World Cup (and European Championship) is different, but two things you can count on: England won't win; and SOMEONE WILL BE TO BLAME. If it's not the referee, it'll be the diving, cheating Latins. If it's not the diving, cheating Latins, it will be David Beckham. If it's not David Beckham, I guess Arsene Wenger will have to do.

Sandrahn is quite right.
We hope that thye academy develop good english players, although the english player never had the skills that the continental player has, only because in the continent they teach skills and tactics and in england they teach running and running and tackles. english football and the premiership were far behind other leagues, besides wenger did a great job in arsenal. who was rsenal before him? a third rate club in europe, with plenty of british players but there again only could run.
do not forget it was the foreign coaches and players that made the primiership almost equal to the La Liga and serie A, before wenger they were very much like sctish league.
bye 4 now

No worries, sandrahn. I appreciate you letting us know that a comment is getting hung up in the system.

Trent, thanks for your response - apologies for my impatience.

Ah, they'll all thank Arsenal when the English kids in the Academy start growing up. Or maybe they won't. Eh.

sandrahn--sorry for the technical issue. Not sure why your post was marked as spam. At any rate, it's up now.

And thanks for your readining / contributions!

marcello, arsenal has two starter players (Hoyte & Walcott), some in reserve and several on loan at other clubs

ok, one more try:

yes, marcello they do - Justin Hoyte and Theo Walcott, plus a few others in reserves, and some on loan to other clubs.

There's a lot of petty and irrational resentment toward Wenger and Arsenal in England. I've seen it myself whenever I've visited there and also on various UK forums on the net that I frequent. What many don't know is that there are a lot of English kids from Arsenal's academy playing at other clubs -- more than most other club academies. Also, Arsenal is hardly unique. Here is a comparison list of English players on the starting lineup of all Prem clubs:

ARSENAL - 2
ASTON VILLA - 6
BLACKBURN ROVERS - 2
BOLTON - 2
CHARLTON ATHLETIC-4
CHELSEA - 3
EVERTON - 5
FULHAM - 3
LIVERPOOL - 3
MANCHESTER CITY - 4
MANCHESTER UTD - 4
MIDDLESBROUGH - 4
NEWCASTLE - 7
PORTSMOUTH - 7
READING - 5
SHEFFIELD UTD - 8
TOTTENHAM - 3
WATFORD - 7
WEST HAM - 6
WIGAN - 7

Finally, here's Wenger's response to Steve Gibson (Middlesborough's chairman) blaming him for England's failure in the recent friendly against Spain:

"If you leave national pride aside then you have to accept international games are of no interest at all. National football is boring, you have to accept that. For me, there are two things; club football has moved forward and national football has gone backwards. England were behind in developing players for years but they have worked hard to rectify things. France started that in 1974. They won the European Championship in 1984 because we had an exceptional player [Michel Platini]. Then they won the World Cup in 1998 and reached the World Cup Final in 2006. That work began in 1974. It shows that the work takes 20 years. The only thing I can say is that whenever England do not win it is always my fault, even when I am not at the game. To put players in my team who are not good enough would not strengthen the England team but weaken the Arsenal team. I'm not at fault for England's frustrations."

what is the matter with this blog? Why aren't you posting my replies?

Does Arsenal even have any English players?

Nice to see him rehashing the same sentiments that were made back when the Spice Girls were popular.