Jenkinson, Bellerin, Sczenzcy, Wilshire, Ramsey, Akpom, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Gnabry, Coquelin, Gibbs, Bendtner, Vela, Hayden... Not all in Arsenal's first team now, but all are playing at good levels and all have featured for their first team at some point.
Agree there. It was deffo something that we lacked and its even more deffo a long long term thing not a quick fix. If nowt else, that's one legacy we all should be grateful to the Allams for.
I think Chazz's point was over the period of time they've had it, you might expect more. Dunno really. It would be awesome to think you could put a whole team out from your academy but I guess that is slightly unlikely.
Nobody above semi professional level would ever do it. I know what he meant though. You see many big clubs buying young players for their potential, but they are unable to fulfil said potential because they aren't playing. As much as people slag their system off, I think Chelsea have it right. Their players aren't stagnating, they're playing in professional set ups and getting experience in competitive games.
As said, I think there’s mileage in the idea that we could buy cheaper as a Championship club rather than as a TV rich Premier League club. You can’t have enough goal scorers and we’ve never had a contender in the Prem. Perhaps, someone like Rhodes could make the transition. Plus, this season Abel H could easily dry up and Chuba, has been good but hasn’t been exactly prolific. With the TV money on offer, would signing a striker of that quality be a waste of money in the short and long term? As for Cardiff, I don't recall the goals drying up at all pre Campbell. Could be wrong, but I remember them winning pretty much every week prior to him signing for them.
They were winning, but their strikers weren't scoring the goals. Their top scorer that season was Heidur Helguson with 9 in all comps (8 in the league). Whittingham and Gunnarsson, both CM, got 8 and Mason and Gestede got 6 and 5 respectively. Bellamy managed a paltry 4. They weren't exactly prolific. Campbell himself only managed 2 more than Gedo did that season. It wasn't Campbell coming in that fired them to promotion, they had goalscoring midfielders, like we do. Abel has one less goal than Cardiff's top goalscorer managed all that season. The TV money on offer is good, but if Abel and Akpom continue in their form and Dio turns out to be decent then we aren't going to need somebody like Rhodes because he won't get in the team. You can have too many goalscorers, because unless you're going to play 2-3-5, you're going to start pissing people off. Look at QPR when they went down, they just kept buying strikers in an effort to fix their problems and players started kicking off.
Jenkinson signed from Charton at age 19. Ramsey FFS Sterling!!! I cant be arsed to go through the rest. But how many started at Arsenal at 9 or 10 and progressed through??
Ah yeah Ramsey came from Cardiff didn't he? I don't know how many came through their academy from a young age, but I would have thought a lot of fans consider Greg Luer one of our youth lads, even though we nabbed him from a non league side.
Bellerin went through the Barca academy, joined Arsenal when he was 16, Szczęsny was also 16 when joined from Legia Warsaw, so was Gnaby when he joined from Stuttgart, Coquelin was 17 when he joined from Stade Lavallois, Gibbs was 16 when he joined from Wimbledon, Bentner was 15 when joined from Kjøbenhavns Boldklub, Vela was 16 when he joined from Guadalajara and Hayden was 14 when he joined from Southend. Akpom, Maitland-Niles and Iwobi all went through the Arsenal academy from the start, but none are exactly first team players. Wilshere is the only first team player on that list who went through their full academy.
The academy may be better now but I think our attitude towards youngsters is worse than ever. Cairney was brought through, sort of, under previous managers. Cooper, Bradley, Atkinson, Devitt and Cullen all started league games too. Before that it was Nicky Featherstone and even further back Clayton Donaldson and Scott Wiseman. None of them were big success stories but they started league games. Now we have players like Luer who's proven himself at every level he's played but we all know he won't get a real chance. Bruce regularly hints at his reluctance to play academy players. Nowadays when we talk about academy players we mean these 22 year olds who've been out on loan all over the place. We treat them like we used to treat 18 year olds and other clubs still do.
QPR just seemed to collect players rather than build a team. I take your point on goals from the midfield, but we’re still short on centre forward options. So, I do believe that a move for a quality forward, who looks to have potential to play in the Prem, would be a choice signing in January. However, tet’s hope that Diomande fills that gap when fit.
He'd play them if they were good enough. Robertson is 21. Akpom is 20. They have to be good enough. Akpoms just been dropped for Mo Diame. good call I'd say. You wouldnt drop Mo for Luer or Hernandez for Luer. You wouldnt drop akpom for Luer. Luer's on the bench. He's got a chance, lets hope he gets one and takes it. Wenger isnt ****ing off giroud to play Akpom is he?
Then we wait until we get to the Premier League. Jak is fine as a back up, if you sit there thinking he's going to make a mistake you aren't going to see the bits he does well are you? McGregor is doing fine this season, if we replace him it'll be when we are promoted, not before.
