Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Are attitudes changing towards foreigners in the English Game?

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Over the year’s, Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have been criticised for a whole range of reason’s. Whether it was the disciplinary record of his early time in charge, the lack of trophies in his later time, or the foreign legion he bought in during his mid-time in charge. He has been derided throughout his time in English football. At times, I have felt it was borderline xenophobia, as he got criticised whilst other managers did not.

One of the most frustrating criticism’s was the lack of Englishmen in the squad.

On February 14th 2005, Arsenal became the 1st team to field a 16-man squad (as it was back then) of foreign players. Wenger was criticised by all and sundry for not carrying for the English game, being a disgrace, and showing a lack of respect for the country which employed him. Arsene Wenger’s response was simple:

“I don’t look at the passport of people, I look at their quality and their attitude.”

At the time, I vehemently defending the manager, as any fan of the club should do when taking unfair criticism from the likes of TalkSport, The Sun & Spurs fans. My point at the time was the reasoning behind the criticism. That Arsene Wenger was not helping the English game. At the time I looked around other teams throughout the Premier League and who they had developed for the England National Team.

My research highlighted that, in 2005, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea & Spurs had all failed to develop an England REGULAR in the new millennium. Yet it was only Arsenal (and occasionally Chelsea) who were getting the criticism. At this point, out of England’s regular starting XI, the man from these 5 clubs who had made his club debut most recent was Ashley Cole. So much for England’s failure being Arsenal’s fault!

This criticism of Arsenal came to a head a year later when Arsenal knocked out Real Madrid of the Champions League, and Alan Pardew commented:

“I saw a headline saying Arsenal are flying the flag for Britain. I kind of wondered where that British involvement actually was when I looked at their team. It’s important that top clubs don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s the English Premier League and English players should be involved.”

Last night, Newcastle lost 3-1 to Everton, Newcastle – Managed by Alan Pardew – lined up as follows:

Krul
Debuchy Coloccini Yanga-M’Biwa Santon
Sissoko Tiote Anita
Ben Arfa Remy Gouffran

Not a single Englishman amongst them. And also, not a single criticism of this ‘foreign legion’ by the English press. Meanwhile, in Arsenal’s strongest 11, we have 3 Englishmen and a Welshman. Where is the praise? Why is the press not going OTT about us being the saviour of the English Football Team?

My only thought is that attitudes to foreigners in our game have changed. Why else would Pardew change his philosophy so quickly? And it is not just Newcastle. Let’s look at Stoke City.

When they played Arsenal last weekend, they had 1 Englishman on the field. And I would happily question if Ryan Shawcross was born in England, or found in a sewer in some god forsaken corner of the earth. Infact, they had 10 different nationalities on the pitch. It would be 11 if Marc Wilson did not decide to turn his back on Northern Ireland and play for Republic of Ireland.

But where once again, where was the criticism? The column inches? The hours of radio coverage? Have attitudes really changed, or does the media just not care when it does not involve Arsenal?

Another example of this is choice of managers. The top sides (Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool & Chelsea) were often heavily criticised for not giving a British manager a chance, with Ferguson (up to a couple of years ago) being the only British manager managing one of England’s top 6 sides. The criticism was heavy. But again, have opinions changed?

The 3 favourites for the Sunderland are currently Gianfranco Zola, Robert Di Matteo & Gustavo Poyet, with Rene Meulensteen also in the frame. Now I might be being thick (and some would so yes due to the state of my spelling and grammar), none of these are English (or British). Where is the criticism of Sunderland? And Everton replaced David Moyes with a Spaniard in Roberto Martinez. Where is their criticism.

I can only come up with 2 possible outcomes:

1) The attitudes of foreigners in the English game has changed or;
2) The press only care about the amount of foreigners in the English game when it sells papers

All I know is I agree with what Arsene Wenger said at the beginning. The passport does not matter. I care about Arsenal, and want the best to play for Arsenal. If that best are not born in The Wittingham Hospital, then so be it. But let’s have some fair criticism shared around yeh?

Keenos

10 Reasons why we will beat Swansea + Starting XI

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1.. Sagna, he finally got a rest mid-week and he deserved it as he’s been quietly but professionally been getting on with his job this season no matter where he’s been asked to play.

2.. Mertesacker, proving that if you don’t move fast you can play all day and all night. The fella is turning into a robot, always reliable, always in the right place and not scared to give it a hoof when needed.

3.. Ramsey, another week another set of booing opposition fans to shut up. I will never understand why the Stoke fans boo Ramsey, idiots but it’s only normal for Swansea fans to boo an ex-Cardiff player. He did pick up a knock but looks likely it wont stop him playing and hopefully keeping up his amazing scoring record this season.

4.. Jack Wilshere, firstly congratulations on the birth of his daughter this week. Not having the best of times right now on the pitch, Wenger is asking him to cover the left side of the pitch and that’s not normal for him. Neither is having Ozil taking up positions he likes to get into. He is a clever lad, he will work it out but may take time and of course he needs to add goals to his games.

5.. Swansea are having an average start to the season, they have already lost to that lot from Middlesex and Man Utd. Their best prem result so far is a draw at Liverpool. Scoring only 7 and letting in 7, 6 of which were at home.

6.. Ozil, everyone must be impressed with his start. It’s never easy when a player hasn’t had a pre-season and hardly any training with a new team but I guess when you are world class you should be able to play with anyone. 3 assists against Stoke made a great home debut and I fully expect him to have a field day today playing against a Swansea team who like to play the game the right way.

7.. Gnarby, I felt so sorry for him when he missed his penalty against West Brom. Out of our emerging youth players he is the one whose likely to play a good few games right now due to our horrific injury problems in the attacking wide positions. He is an exciting prospect and it’s now up to him to show some old fashioned balls and take his chance and stake his claim before players come back from injury (obv this will not include Diaby).

8.. La La La Lalallaaa…Giroud, 4 goals in 5 prem games this season and again someone who earned a rest mid-week. Right now we would be doomed without him and he must be the 1st player subbed once we are in a match winning position.

9.. 11 straight away wins now and I don’t care what anyone says when you play a cup game and you win, you have won. It doesn’t matter if it was in 90mins, extra time or on pens, you have won. So let’s put an end to that bloody nonsense.

10.. It’s been 17 years since Mr Wenger walked into our club and history will record him as a man of two half’s. The first being the most amazing free flowing football with fresh ideas which not only changed how The Arsenal is run but also world football and he will go down as one of the greatest managers ever. The second half hasn’t been so good, people have caught up, taken over and he failed to progress. He now has the record for the longest trophy free run of any manager of The Arsenal.

Likely Starting XI – Chesney, Sagna, Per, Kos, Gibbs, Ramsey, Jack, Flamini, Ozil, Gnarby, Giroud

The Influence of Computer Games on Football Opinions

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Today, FIFA 14 is released to the masses. Adults and children throughout the world will be taking day’s off work to get their first taste of the new version – which is basically the same as previous versions with just a few tweaks. Most of them, having just completed GTAV would have just spent £50 on the game and it is this that they will play until Football Manager is out in October.

Over the years, football games have become more influential in the lives of football fans. No longer do they just watch a game on a Saturday, play themselves on a Sunday, and train mid-week, they now spend every woken day playing the simulators. Writing down squads whilst they are supposed to be listening to the teacher. Researching wonder kids during work hours. And spending hours day dreaming on what they are going to do when they get home.

Whilst games such as FIFA, Pro Evolution Soccer, Champions Manager and Football Manager are brilliant – I own a PS3 with just 1 game (or 2, now the new FIFA is out) they also cause my a lot of frustration. Often these games form the opinion of fans when talking about players.

Fans have begun to genuinely build an opinion on a player based on how they perform in a game. Take young players for example. Despite having never seen a young player perform, manager simulators such as Football Manager and Championship Manager will create an opinion for a fan.

Ganso, for example, was massively hyped up last summer. Barely anyone had seen him play. Not many people watch Brazilian football, and he only has 8 caps for Brazil. Very few could genuinely sit and say they thought he would be a good addition to the Arsenal side. Yet many did and many were getting excited over him. Odd.

But not odd when you then remember he has been a star on Football Manager for a few years. People built their opinion on him based on a computer game. They wanted us to spend £20 million+ on a player based on a computer game. It is ludicrous. And now? He is playing for Santos and a big money move to Europe looks unlikely. Football Manager certainly warps the opinion of players.

FIFA also does the same. Anyone who has played the game knows pace is king. If you do not have pace, you will struggle at the game. I believe this is one reason why Per Mertesacker is massively underrated. He is not a FIFA player due to his low pace rating. What FIFA has not got built in properly is how a player reads a game.

If you ever watch Per in real life, you will see he is one of the worlds best defenders. A brilliant reader of the game, he dominates forwards, no matter how quick they are. Pace means nothing if you can not dribble past a defender. And Mertesacker is extremely hard to get past. He will either intercept the pass, or stick out one of his big legs to win the ball. And he does it with ease.

Yes, if a player does get past him, he struggles, but every centre back in the world struggles when they are the wrong side of an attacker.

The problem here is people have built their opinion of Mertesacker based on his FIFA profile. They play with the likes of Kaboul or David Luiz, who are quicker and therefore more suited to the game. They then rate these two as better than Mertesacker, even though they are not.

They base this opinion on a game, not on what they see. Anyone who watch’s these 3 guys on a regular basis will recognise that Per Mertesacker is far superior to the other two.

People also rate Kyle Walker above Bacary Sagna. Again, because Walker is based on the game with brilliant pace. What the game does not show is his positioning is awful and he can not read the game.

The games also change how fan’s think a club is run. They make scouting seem easy. They make signing players seem easy. They make selling players seem easy. “Why can’t we just fax all clubs about Bendtner, offer them a free transfer with a 50% sell on clause” people ask. Well transfers are harder than that.

A game does not take into consideration personal relationships. Families. Wives. A game does not distinguish between playing in Spain, living on a hillside just outside Madrid, and living within the Arctic Circle in Russia. It makes the world of football seem easy. And it is not that easy.

When thinking about football. About players. About how the game works. People need to use their own eyes. Watch players play. Learn how football clubs and transfers work. Not base all their opinions on a game.

Judge players on what you see during games the highlights, or what you read about in reliable papers / magazines. Stop judging players on how good they are on computer games, or YouTube highlights (another frustration!)

Keenos