afternoon geez! Now, with the amazing and consistent rise of Sir jack of wilshere mixing the skill and technique we're all used to with some ambition desire and aggression and the same perhaps on a slightly slower scale due to his injury with Ramsey and now the likes of Frimpong, Afobe, Gibbs all showing the same kind of skills and desire as wilshere, the aggressive desire we've all been wanting, Are we going to be better off with our youths in a few years? no more moaning about denilson arshavin etc lack of desire, but with all if not more of their skill! dizcuz!
I would take a lazy but talented Arshavin over a hard working but mediocre Afobe. Wilshire, Ramsey and perhaps Gibbs will be special players but i'm not at all convinced by the others.
It's got to be a good mix and the youth have to be ready to make that step up. It seems that a lot of the kids you bring through are good but not quite good enough. There are obviously exceptions.
Can you see him playing for us in 5 years time? At any rate I agree with luvgonzo, a mix of experience and youth is the best solution.
The problem with youth is that it's incredibly hard to tell who is going to make it at the very TOP level. We always MASSIVELY overate our youngsters. Now its Afobe and Aneke... lets just wait and see shall we? Jeremy Aliadiere - Was apparently the next Thierry Henry. Mathew Connelly (QPR) - The next Tony Adams. David Bentley - The next Dennis Bergkamp. Abou diaby - The next Patrick Vieira Quincey Owusu Abeyie - The next Ian Wright. Out of the entire squad of young players it's only Wilshere and Ramsey who look 'exceptional'.
I am most excited about Frimpong, I loved seeing him play for the youth team, he is the one to fix our midfield and provide a proper link between defence and attack in a way that Song can only dream of.
Well I think a youth policy is a great way to go and inherently better than simply bringing in a bunch of mercenaries. Theo came to us when he was a young 'un and I think he can shine in the coming year especially if played as a striker. My pal RVP came as a young hothead from Feyernoord and is considered by some of our learned friends to possibly be the EPL's highest scoring player for the coming season. Nurture them well and anything is possible. In the event that Cesc were to stay, can you imagine how awesome he would be in a couple of years time? So there is hope for the likes of Afobe, Frimpong and Gibbs. It's all a case of what happens between now and then. There was a time when Arsenal kept buying in players. Now we have a great opportunity to do it differently and in a better way. It's a longer road but get it right and you'll wonder why you had never done it before. There may well be lemons on the way but there'll be gems too. IMHO naturally
Even Barcelona with the greatest youth Academy on earth realise that to win things at the TOP level World Class players still need to be brought in externally in order to get the right balance in the team.
Point taken but I suppose in theory, an all youth policy could work though you'd have to have some pretty sharp scouts round the globe. I'll admit that currently with the easier access to players especially if a club is well-funded, the chances of an all youth policy reaping consistent rewards are considerably hindered. Indeed as we have seen by our example!! You'll also appreciate that as a result of an undertaking made earlier this morning, I'm on a positive kick all the way to next Saturday.
I'd start Bartley and Miquel ahead of Squillaci. I'd also start Wilshere, Ramsey, Lansbury and Frimpong ahead of Diaby.
An all youth policy CANNOT work. Listen to Alan Hansen .. the man talks sense, you'll never win anything with just kids. You MUST ally youth with experience, no doubt about it. Equally, for the English league, you must ally physicality with technique - we have that balance all wrong, all tippy tappy but no steel.
True, but by the time our youths are old enough to play, the current players will be experienced thus hopefully we'll have a good mix, the current players with experience and the tippytappy stuff and the youth with the enthusiasm and aggression/physicality That was part of my point, our upcoming youths seem to have the physicality and desire that we seem to miss
And he is still famously slated for that comment after Man Utd went and won the league the same season with one of the youngest squads ever. They had an average age of 24 and six first team players aged under 21. I don't think that age is a precursor to either success or failure, it's about the quality of the players. If everyone in our team was as good as Wilshere in their respective positions, then we'd have a team of 19 year olds, able to beat anybody. I think the one thing about age that improves a player is experience - and a team's collective experience to know how to see out games. The team under George Graham were famous for their 1-0 to the Arsenal tag, they knew when to attack and when to stick 10 men behind the ball. Same as Chelsea or Utd, how many times do you see them throw away a 2-0 lead? I don't think we're far off as a team, but it's these things that we need to learn to do well. For me, I think Frimpong could be the player that links MF and defence, if our back four are better protected, we could see a few more 1-0 to the Arsenal scorelines
Agree with your assesment PISKIE. I'm not particularly convinced the solution to our problems are the names bandied about for vast sums. There is Ash good an argument for not signing the likes of Cahill or Jagielka. An addition to the group defensively may inject a new impetus or conversely promoting from within as in the case of Jack Wilshere ( Miquel/ Bartley ) could be just Ash effective. I am no where near being informed enough to conclude AW has lost it & actually look forward to seeing how he resolves these issues...or not.
The youngster that impresses me most (aside from wilshere and ramsey) is miyaichi. Did he get a work permit afterwards, i haven't seen any news about it.
I don't think the decision has come back yet. It would be good to see Ryo Miyaichi in action. I've heard only good things about him.