Just a thought really but I was thinking last night how many Italians have been successful playing their trade in English football and I came it with only one and he didn't hack it for long Balotelli .The lad Aqilani Liverpool paid over £25m for was sold back or loaned after a very short stay Borini was loaned out to Sunderland where he has not been a resounding success and even John Charles was sold back to Roma after a dozen games or so.So it does point well for these five guinea pigs joining us. Simularly its not worked out to well British players going over their I don't know why Rush failed Greaves failed Law failed Hitchens didn't do bad Gaza failed the only real success was John I hope our leader knows what he is doing but time will tell .No doubt some names I have forgotten who did well maybe Ince but he was never the guvenor over there
Can't think of anyone who has taken the prem by storm It was very close for Watford using the Italians, thing is though they were probably higher standard than the ones we are signing. It doesn't mean its not gonna work, I just think we need to be smart how we use them
But were they a higher standard. I thought they were mainly reserves all from one club but I could be wrong
Finding new homes, schools for their kids, weather to adjust to, wife/girlfriend to convince, the language barrier on and off the field, adjusting to the pace of the Championship, it all takes time, we are taking far to long in assembling a team, every player should be in place by now. The players we are left with certainly were not good enough last season and I am not going to fool myself into believing that they will be this season just because we beat a team 16-0 who had a 15 and 16 year old in the centre of midfield. As someone else mentioned, this is either going to amaze some like me and work fantastically well or we are going to fall flat on our faces BIG time, that is assuming we start with 4-5 Italians as seems likely.
Italians who have done well in England: Zola, Di Canio, Vialli , Di Matteo, Eranio (Derby love him) Ravanelli, Our very own Carbone, Cudicini. That`s a few Italians who done well in England, and what you need to remember is that just because we our buying from the Italian league does not mean they are Italian. We have a French & Swiss player and only 2 Italians singed so far.
These failures may well be down to the language barrier........ Giorgio Chinaglia made the move from Swansea to Italy and did well (maybe because he was an Italian speaker).... nowadays, English is THE international language, so although your new signings may not be fluent English speakers, they will soon get up to speed
You mean the likes of Carlo Cudicini, Gian Franco Zola, GianLuca Vialli, Benito Carbone, Paolo Di Canio, Roberto Di Mateo, Alessndro Pistone, Davide Santon As for those who have moved in the opposite direction I would think David Platt, Graeme Souness, Trevor Francis, and possibly Ray Wilkins, would all be regarded as a success Totally understand what you are getting at tho Leeds60, and I agree with you, however to be honest you could ask that question about virtually any country and struggle to come up with a team of 11. Obviously the Scandinavians have done well over the years, and due to Wengers love of all things French, a fair few of those have been successful. Whilst English football these days has a lot of overseas players, the majority of which are probably no better or worse than home grown players (but probably not as financially demanding), the fact is that I would say it is a lot easier to name foreign players who have been successful playing in the Premier league, than naming British players who have been successful playing in a major foreign league (how that success is defined is another matter, but I'd say they would have to play in that country for at least 3 years to be classed as successful). As Eio mentions above, this is probably helped by Johnny Foreigners relative ease to speak some semblance of English, in comparison to some of our own English born players struggling to speak English, never mind having to learn a foreign language
Dont disagree with you there TC, well I do given that neither Cudicini, Carbone, or Di Canio ever played at full international level But given that the original post mentioned Balotelli, Aquilani and Borini, who have all received full international caps, as being unsuccessful players, surely you respond in kind by naming successful players who have played at a similar level. Neither my response nor the original post has anything to do with the players that we are signing as such given the level of players mentioned in the OP. On average I would expect most no name players from abroad to be of a similar standard to the no name players within our leagues, that non British people will not have heard of (in reality how many foreigners are likely to have heard of any of the players that play for Leeds or Millwall), but work for a lot less money. As a fan, we just hope that our no name players are the ones that are on the side of being slightly better than average, as opposed to being on the worse side.
Well I must t6hank all you posters who gave me food for thought Yes Souness was very successful but then he would be wouldn't he took no prisoners didnt our Graham I forgot too Zola Ravennelli Vialli Davide Santon I have never heard of or Pistone so I would miss him out but thank you just the sanme it shows I'm suffering from some form of dementia when my memory is better working in the 50's
