Yeah true, Iwobi does rather fuck up my point there. It would be somewhat disingenuous to not group him in with the british lads, given he’s grown up in the very same culture, although the Nigerian influence and not identifying as an englishmen might’ve helped him.
I guess the point would be, though, that Bellerín, Fábregas, Iwobi, and Gnabry are all clearly not very british–in the bad way–as Ramsey, Wilshere, Gibbs, Ox, and even Chambers are, or Bentley and Pennant before them.
It’s always better to offer young, exciting players an “undeserved” bumper deal than not. We’re talking about peanuts compared to the market in its other spheres…look at Rashford, they’re talking about him becoming the highest paid teenager ever at 50k a week…that’s still just a 1/4 of what you end up paying to get a top player on the open market, disregarding transfer fees, and considering getting a top player on the open market is complicated enough as it is, it’s always best to hold on to players who can become top players from inside.
It does look difficult for him to get into the Bayern team next season, with Coman, Douglas Costa, Robben, Ribery even still?, and I guess you could say Müller? ahead of him. But young players who have such a strong sense of the right thing to do in the final third, along with the natural abilities he has, are hard to come by. I wouldn’t bet against him.
Well the academy was only re-opened under Wenger circa '99 I think. So you have to expect us not to be bringing many through until 5-10 years after that.
As an academy we have several problems. Firstly the population of young talent in London is shared between us and several other clubs. Compare that to Barcelona who have millions of young kids to pick from or even Southampton who have free reign over most of the south coast kids. Because of that we need to further are net by bringing in EU kids (which won’t be aloud if we lose free movement) and sign post 16yo Brit kids, who again all the top clubs in England are after. Manchester United to has quite a wide net to pick up players.
Iwobi and Wilshere are highly technical ‘thinking’ players who’ve come through our academy from an early age. Bellerin certainly isn’t technically better than either, his talent is primarily his pace and stamina.
Gnabry was on 20k and was almost certainly offered more money to extend. He’s probably had contract offers from us over the last year and has deliberately run his contract down. He showed up out of shape last year at West Brom and didn’t excel enough in training to get picked for them. Personally I question his attitude when as a 20yo with the best opportunity in the world he shows up fat and then is disloyal to a top club in Arsenal.
Bar the scorcher of a goal this weekend he’s only shown good decision at under 23 and according to those who watched it e wasn’t the best young Germans. To put that in perspective, the under 23s is the same level that Sanogo was top scorer at the European Championships, ie it’s worth a punt but a huge gap with the pro game. Right now we’re getting ahead of ourselves rating him ahead over the likes of Ramsey.
Ultimately he may have simply wanted first team football, something we never could of given him. And if he wanted Bayern, well he’s pushed to get out either way.
It’s barely lunch and I’m still working I’ll shoot off some hydration situation posts later tonight…AC in the Coquelin thread is just screaming out for it
Was Gnabrys choice he left though. The guy was injured all the fucking time here and just as he was getting into the team he was injured again, then just as he was fit he decided to fuck off…so he is a bit cuntish tbh!
lol yeh, blame him for not being content sitting behind shite like Ramsey and Oxlade Chamberlain. And for being advised to go to fucking West Brom on loan.
oh fuck off, you are telling me he didn’t have the fucking balls to fight for a place against fucking chamberlain…fucking joke! It goes to show his character, because as much as you hate him Pulis said the guy wouldn’t even train properly and did not show work ethic that is why he was never played. Him going like a shot instead of fighting for his place even when going on loan, for all of his talent his attitude seems to fucking stink. Wenger said that he and the club tried their damndest to keep him but he decided he wanted out, but whatever fits your agenda huh, the guy is fucking weak…talented but fucking weak. He had a good friendship with one of the best players in the world but sacrificed it all because he didn’t want to fight for a spot that is all I need to know about him.
It would be somewhat disingenuous to not group him in with the british lads, given he’s grown up in the very same culture, although the Nigerian influence and not identifying as an englishmen might’ve helped him.