Wigan's British Legion Proves Foreign not always the Answer
Posted by liam_wafc in Wigan | 22 November 2006
With clubs like Arsenal without a first team British player in their ranks (Theo Walcott is not a starting player at the moment) teams like my own Wigan deserve a certain amount of respect for keeping the backbone of the team British.
Before i praise our British legion, i admit that yes we also have some influential members of our team who are foreign. Our Skipper and legend Arjan De Zeeuw is Dutch, Paul Scharner (arguably our engine in place of Bullard) is Austrian and our speed Camara is Senegalese.
Other than those however, the majority of our first teamers are of British variety. Two of our goalkeepers are English, with England International Chris Kirkland our current number one. Three of our four starting defence are English; Baines, Boyce and Jackson (Hall is also English and Webster Scottish)
Our midfield has the largest foreign influence, but even with Denny Landzaat, Antonio Valencia and Scharner, we also have Kevin Kilbane (Irish yes but i count him as British) and Scots Gary Teale and temporary stand-in striker Lee McCulloch.
And up front, leading our attack (when fit) is Englishman Emile Heskey.
Now, you may be thinking, yes you have the British players, but are they succesful? That depends on what you class as success.
Yes when it comes down to it our band of home grown players won't be winning us the title anytime soon, but they have helped us secure and push on from our tenth placed finish last year, and some of them (Baines, Teale and McCulloch) have risen up the leagues with the club from the dark old Division Two days.
Baines for example (a product of our youth system) is being fast tracked for future England honours, while McCulloch is an integral part of our team and a very unorthodox left winger.
So although they aren't world beaters, Wigan prove that a certain amount of success can be made from showing a bit of faith to the British countries players.
Comments
Few doubt that a british core can make a midtable team in the premiership. It can even win you a domestic cup or two; it can even win a European Cup once in a blue moon if you have the very best of the british in one side.
The issue is whether England need first to improve the development of young players (i.e., produce better footballers) before big clubs contract them, or whether forcing big clubs (through media pressure or through FIFA regulations) to contract them (over imports) will produce better English players. I would say the former, not least b/c we've tried the latter and it gave us the best generation of '66 and that amounted to less than 15 consistently world class players, including Giggs, a generation that was still able to bring 2 European Cups to Britain. But failed spectacularly in international competitions.
What is Wigan's contribution so far? Are they helping to develop the next generation of world beaters? I don't see it. They seem a team relying on has-beens who never were, b/c England/Britain doesn't produce enough footballers to go around. (Goalkeepers don't count mate, that's an entirely different production line.)
Well, in that case it's horses for courses, isn't it?
You're ecstatic at being a mid-lower table team, and 'success' for you is defined by staying in the premiership and some sort of a cup run.
At Arsenal on the other hand, our ambitions are much loftier and it won't do simply to be also-runs.
This is only one way of putting it...there are a miriad of other reasons why we have more foreign than British players...these have been laboured over ad infinatum.
Remain true to your Britishness and happy with your 'success' and we'll stay true to our own values and our own definition of success...after all, we're doing nothing illegal...and it's a free country, isn't it?
IT IS A MAJOR CONCERN TO US ARSENAL FANS WHO THINK WE THE POLICY OF BUYING OVERSEAS TALENT WILL DAMAGE US IN THE FUTURE, I ADMIRE WIGAN IN THE WAY THEY HAVE GONE DOWN THE ROUTE OF HAVING A SOLID BRITYISH BACKBONE, THIS IS PROB THE REASON YOU ARE DOING SO WELL.
DANIEL ANTHONY MITCHELL
EAST LONDON
ARESENAL FAN
If Irish is British then so is French.
You're right, Arsenal should be signing Emile Heskey and Kevin Kilbane not Henry and Rosicky. They should also have spent £35 million on Rio Ferdinand rather than £600,000 on Kolo Toure
Arsenal also have Hoyte. Must be nice to have a player who you count as British like Kilbane. I myself count Henry, Flamini and Clichy as British on the same basis.
Seriously, good luck to Wigan and I wish you well over the coming seasons, whatever division you are in but some of the bigger teams (no offence) have to keep up with the world beaters and Arsenal have never been in a position to compete with Man.Utd financially until now and will never be in a position to compete with Abramovich, hence the need to find good quality bargains and over here, where there is a dearth of talent it just ain't gonna happen! So thanks I'll stick to the Henry's, Toure's and Fabregas's(costing less than 15 mill for the 3) of this world, rather than half decent British (not Irish) talent like Pennant, Carrick and Johnson (costing almost double).
Do you think clubs say "No British" ? Clubs say "Best Players Please".
You think the clubs say "No British Players At The Academy" ? They will take any player if good enough.
With all Wigan's Britishness they are still mid table team. West Ham, self confessed xenophobes, bottom of the table.
And why do people say home grown are British and Irish players ? Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, Irish ? That's still a foreign player as far as FIFA & UEFA are concerned.
Geographically France is closer than Ireland and has as much relevance to the argument about players nationality.
So, that brings us down to the matter in hand, English players, the cream of world football ?
When you are given your pick of the best of them you can assemble a team that can only muster a 0-0 draw against Macedonia and go down 2-0 against Croatia. A team that plays football so turgid that the organisers struggle to fill stadiums.
The big club's academies are working flat out to find the next Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, Rooney. Do you honestly think they are picking and choosing based on passport ? i can see it now "Sorry mate, you are just ike Wayne Rooney only better but unfortunately you are British, we have someone here who is just like Stewart Downing and the best bit is that he's from France."
Have a look on the web and you can see the following British players that came from the much criticised Arsenal academy that have either left or in some case are on loan in the last 2 years.
Bentley, Sidwell, Muamba, Stokes, Pennant, Gilbert, Jordan, Stack, Ryan Smith, Adam Birchall, Dean Macdonald, Stuart Taylor, Stephen O'Donnell, Patrick Cregg, Mark Howard, Michael Jordan.
Thats a fair number BRITISH of players playing in the British leagues, some of them were good but just not good enough.
The current squad has 7 British & Irish players in it.
What I would suggest, before writing such rubbish, is that you look around. We aren't exactly overflowing with talent. A lot of our schools don't even have playing fields as they have been sold off. Our kids are the fattest in Europe and second only to Americans.
I think the issue is slightly confused here. The England side that missed USA '94 was of the same era that had United winning the double with just 4 English players. Why mention British when England are not benefitting? The last time I checked, England have qualified for every tournament since then, and the reason is that good quality foreigners playing for the big clubs demand good performances from competing English ones. Also, the majority of England players play in the Champions League - why is that?
Your comments are nothing short of a throwback to the dark ages, which everyone remembers when English clubs were banned from Europe and the English side of '88 got mutilated by van Basten's Holland.
Arsenal's foreigners are here to stay, and I think I speak for all fans when I say that its better to have foreign players who bring skill than have British battlers who get humiliated 4-0 in the Carling Cup final.
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