I could go on and outline the success of last year’s loans for Benik Afobe and JET at Huddersfield and Cardiff, but in reality, whilst both may feature and have a bright future with us, this coming season may be one too early to burden them with too much responsibility.
The point is that as we all know Alan Hansen was famously proved wrong when he said of the Man United team in 1995 that they would never win anything with them kids, having sold three of their best players in Ince, Kanchelskis and Hughes that summer. You can of course win with kids as they did with six players under the age of 21, if the kids are immensely talented and if you have four to five players around them with top quality and bags of experience. However, the talented kids in question were all in midfield or up front, only Neville was added to a back five that included Schmeichel, Irwin, Bruce and Pallister.
So perhaps I am dreaming but I feel that Walcott, Ramsey, Wilshere, Lansbury can, with the help of Robin van Persie and hopefully Gervinho, terrorize teams going forwards in the way that Giggs, Scholes, Butt and Beckham did with the help of Keane and Cantona. All dependent of course on Wenger moving swiftly to secure the three or four experienced signings we need to ensure the missing ingredient of a secure defensive unit, as we had back in 1998, 2002 and 2004, and what Man United had back in 1995.
So Wenger spend the millions you have on the three players we need, Cahill, Samba or Dann, at centre-back, Baines or Enrique at Left-back and a real top goalkeeper (sorry Szchezzer) and let’s just see if this dream can become a reality.
Lastly, to draw the final parallel between the Man United 1995/96 double winning kids and our own now, we should not undervalue what it means to be homegrown.
Scholes, Beckham, Giggs and the Nevilles had lived and breathed United from an early age, and winning for their own team meant everything to them. Wilshere, Lansbury, JET, Frimpong have all been at our academy since they were eight or nine, and winning medals in the red and white of Arsenal is their dream.
Wenger must have learnt that, despite investing heavily in youngsters from abroad and improving them, the drive to win honors in the game is more important than winning them necessarily with Arsenal.
Indeed as a scholar of all things Arsenal, Wenger need not even look to Old Trafford to learn the lesson. He can look closer to home when in the late 1980’s George Graham added experience and quality at the back in Bould, Dixon and Winterburn to a group of super talented homegrown youngsters, Adams, Hayes, Thomas, Rocastle, Quinn and Merson, who all went on to achieve their dreams with their own club so famously at Anfield in May 1989.
Keep believing in homegrown fantasy football and ram it back down Paul Scholes throat.
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No it bloody isn. You keep bringin up these names, and yera after year thye fail. So basiclly this yera again we lose our better players, and more kids, so whats the difference? The kids that were playing lats year will be playing with even more less experinced kids this yearnd the loop contiues, hell its just a never ending full circle. You mix kids with top quality players, and they get experince that way as was shown by Mn utd countless years. The lieks of ronaldo, bekhamn,nevilles,scholes etc etc, were mixed in with top quality players, and they got the winning mentaility through winning trophoes, and they have just cntinued it. We havnt won anything with these players, so they dont even know what it like. Case in point the carling cup final, and other carling cup finals the past 6 years. exeprience of top quality players beats kids, which has been proven over and over again. yes they may win a game here and there agasint top teams, but so what?
I won the Prem and Champions League with kids. Oh wait that was a videogame. =(
Excellent article. With the current crop we can stay top four and hopefully win some cups. I think it’s going to take a bit longer before the league comes back to us, simply because of the quality of the opposition, but I still see good times ahead, especially with financial fair play on its way. You may say that I’m a dreamer…..
Mr Creosote
Unlike some others you actually read the articles and thanks for the second thumbs up this week.
twitter.com/daveseager66
Too much negative nonsense flying around at the moment. It’s nice to read some positive articles.