Arsenal Belong In The Championship

By: chris | November 12th, 2008

Having watched Arsenal’s Youth & Reserve Team All-Stars embarrass a proper Premier League side in the Carling Cup last evening, I can only think one thing: I want more.

Yeah, Jack Wilshere could make his way onto the senior bench and Carlos Vela may soon ascend from cup legend to budding top flight superstar, but they need minutes more than a standing ovation for a 6 minute cameo at this point. This team – this band of superbly technical teenagers – needs to be seen as that – a team. Even more, Arsenal’s youth system, a rolling machine which graduates and subsequently replenishes, as a whole needs to be seen. So like Barcelona’s B & C team and Real Madrid’s famed Castilla, it’s time to give the people what they want and the Arsenal youth system what it needs: a second team in the Championship.

Of course it’ll never happen; FA rules prevent as much, though we can’t be prevented from dreaming. Or maybe Arsenal could just pick up and move to Spain – it’d certainly make Cesc happy, and that’s half the battle these days, is it not? Plus the starting XI – or senior squad, for that matter – is twice as Spanish as it is English (that’s Cesc & Manuel to one Theo). Although that extra year players are eligible for professional contracts (17 elsewhere to 16 in England) will certainly have Arsene poo-pooing any suggestions in his most snarling French accent. And, you know, everything else which would rule out such a move.

But joking aside, that was a joy to watch. Not merely the movement of that little sphere, but the way the boys – quite literally, in this case – went about their work. Or not work. But play. Yeah, they went about their “play”. Unlike the big boys – there are some virtuous athletes out there, but they’re seemingly getting few and far between – they weren’t playing for a fat new contract or the adoration of swooning fans, they were playing because it was fun. Featuring a youthful exuberance that only comes with, well, youth. How often do players roam around the field and flash a smile regardless of what’s happening? Hardly ever. Though winning certainly helps.

Of course, that is the point, isn’t it? They are winning. Winning big. And it’s not like they’re beating FC I’m Too Drunk To Walk Sunday Pub Team or Craptastic FC. Wigan and Sheffield United may not be top drawer teams, but beating two established professional sides – one in the top flight, the other mounting a strong challenge to return – by a resounding combined score of 9-0 says a thing or two about the quality of these lads. They may be young in years, but their technique and pure skills are light years ahead of their peers and most in their prime. And what better way to give these players the requisite experience they need while still under the tutelage of the Arsenal system, still in the same city, still playing together, but against an opponent worthy of their challenge.

It’s worked for Real and Barca – the Real Castilla and Barca B aid in boasting two of the most productive and abundant youth systems in the world, much less Spain – and I’ve been told fairy tales of a team which once grew up together, played together, developed together and ultimately won together. A lot. That team also gave us a little thing called Total Football, one of the true gems afforded to us over the long history of the game. So if not for Arsenal, they should do it for football. Here lies an opportunity for something incredibly special.

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Category: English Premier League, World Football

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ish

all the top 4 have great youngsters in their squads. Many of them however are international players because of the 90mins drive away rule.
The top 4 all want their reserves to be eligible to play in divisions 2-6 but never go up to prem or Championships. The FA is adamant against it because it essentially makes the lower tiers useless(they are but people dont like to admit it). Now the way arsenal has the set up they either offer a contract to a 16 yo who shows promise or they poach a younger player and move them to within the limits, this favours team playing in areas of dense population with relatively few teams per population, like manU, manC, everton and liverpool. That said london teams obviously had a much larger population so it worked out pretty evenly. Now days though with so many international youth players it becomes hard for english players to break into top4 clubs thats why manC, west ham and the smaller CC clubs are getting players that are great but all get poached when young. walcott got poached for something like 10mill which for an unproven 16-17 yo is alot.
After that bit of rambling i would love for the english teams to field teams in lower divs but make it so that players need to be registered to a team for that year like when they register for CL so that if a player is put into first team they cant play div3 football when not playing regularly. And players cant get promoted from reserves to 1st team till at transfer season.
huskynation

MLS. I'd love to see tht group play in MLS. Hold on now, before you jump up and down. What if they were given December and January off, perhaps to go and train in Spain at Hoddle's school or somewhere or just have some time off. Then they could be shipped to America to play either for an established side or for an Arsenal affliliate, are you listening Rapids? It would add some flavor to MLS, give journeyman American players a chance to prove themselves against them, and hasten the Barcelona experiment in Miami.
sandrahn

Oh, one more thing, Chris -- Vela and Wilshere are already in the first team. Wilshere was given Flamini's number.
sandrahn

And Chris -- I agree, I'd love to see this Arsenal team in the Championship. So would Wenger.
sandrahn

Inara, no one's saying that Arsenal's academy is on the same level as Barca's. And I don't think you know a lot about Arsenal's academy or these kids. The players in the CC were all groomed at Arsenal's academy, they started at the club at very young ages. Wilshere joined the club when he was 8.

Arsenal have produced many PL players, there are several players in the PL that were produced at Arsenal's academy. No, they're not world class -- but they do populate one of the world's best and toughest leagues.

I wish people would understand what Wenger has been doing. Years ago he said that it would take 10-12 years to start producing top class talent from Arsenal's academy, esp. top class English talent.

Wenger has upgraded the academy to produce technically gifted players. This is a longterm project and is only now just beginning to bear SOME fruit.

It is very easy for Barca to have a world class academy because the club operates in a country with a totally different culture of nurturing and developing children from toddler age into skilled footballers.

Wenger is operating in a country where young children playing football are taught to smash the ball, hoof it up the park, get rid of it. He's got a much harder job to do to develop players. He's also operating in a country with a 90-minute catchment rule. That is, no English club can recruit locally beyond a 90-minute area from their home ground. And Arsenal competes in this same geographic region with other London clubs like Chelsea, Spurs, Fulham, QPR, West Ham, etc.

The fact is NO English club -- incl. Man Utd and Chelsea -- have academies that regularly produce world class talent. That's because English FA rules and English football culture do everything possible to prevent it.

Wenger's been working patiently on a longterm project to produce gifted English footballers. This particular generation is the FIRST one to have been nurtured and trained entirely under Wenger. That's what is particularly exciting about their future. Wenger is also one of the very few coaches who regularly works personally with young players -- something that managers at clubs like Chelsea never do.
Barcattack

When I say biggest level, I mean the CL. Lyon look so vulnerable in CL.
Barcattack

Maybe if Aulas is not such a prick, and Lyon not "moneybags", Lyon would look just as glamorous as Arsenal. Oh yeah, their academy is worldclass! Apparently..but so what? Nothing counts unless you do it at the biggest level. Monaco were making all the right sound because they were successful in both, producing talents and winning things. where are they now? They are not successful, and no one cares about their academy any more. No "bragging rights" so to speak. Lol.
Barcattack

Inara is just clueless, what he wants to say? What if anyone brags their academy as world class? Does it hurt your feelings? ;)
Shazback

Inara, what would make a "great youth system"?

Does (did?) Man U have a "great youth system"? I mean, Giggs, Scholes and Brown all have two Champions' Leagues under their belt (as well as respectively 10, 8 and 5 Premier League titles), Beckham, G. Neville, P. Neville, Butt, O'Shea and Fletcher all have a Champions' League winners medal to show (and respectively 6 [+1 Spanish Liga], 7, 6, 6, 3 and 2 Premiership medals)...

And then there are players who didn't succeed at Manchester United, but who garnered a considerable number of caps, such as Keith Gillespie (100+ League apps for Newcastle and Blackburn, 4th most apps for Northern Ireland (85), twice league runner-up), Robbie Savage (200+ apps for Leicester City, 100+ apps for Birmingham and Blackburn, 40 apps for Wales), David Healy (35 goals in 70 apps for Northern Ireland, including a hat-trick against Spain in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, where he scored 13 goals in 11 games, now only behind Owen, Greaves, Lineker and Charlton in the home nations scoring tallies), Kirovski (60+ apps for the USA, part of the Borussia Dortmund squad that won the Champions' League in 1996-1997, although he was not in the squad for the final, played in the Super Cup 1997 however), and David Platt (yes, Aston Villa, Bari, Juventus, Sampdoria and Arsenal's David Platt, PFA Player of the year 1989-1990, 4th in the 1990 World Cup with England, UEFA Cup winner 1993 with Juventus, and the Premier League and FA Cup double in 1997-1998)...

So does Man U have a good youth academy/setup? Did they in the early 90s?

Since you want to talk about La Masia, let's talk about it. When Barcelona won the Champions' League in 2006, only two of their starting XI were from the Barcelona youth setup (Victor Valdes and Carles Puyol). The same number that Man U had in 2008 (Wes Brown and Paul Scholes). On the bench, Barcelona had 4 players that had come through their youth system (Albert Jorquera, Thiago Motta, Xavi, Iniesta), whilst Man U only had 3 (Ryan Giggs, John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher). You could argue that Lionel Messi should also be counted as part of the "squad" for Barcelona, even though he didn't feature in the final. But Gary Neville is in a similar position... Having played to beat Barcelona (with Lionel Messi) in 2008.

So where is the difference between the "brilliant" Barcelona academy, and Man U's? (If you compare with the 1999 treble squad, it's far more in Man U's favor : 4 starters in the final were club-bred (Giggs, G. Neville, Beckham, Butt), as well as 2 bench players (P. Neville and Brown), and Scholes was suspended for the final, so you can throw him in too...)

Arsenal sign young players, but it's wrong to think that the rules are being bent. Fabregas, Pique and many other players that leave for other clubs when they feel they won't get a crack at first-team football, or they feel they can play at a higher level by changing club. Since Barcelona are pretty much at the top of the footballing pyramid, they don't have to worry about the second of these problems. But when you have a player like Fabregas who scores 30 goals a season from midfield and whilst he's 16 he still hasn't played a single game (not even a cup game against some part-timers), surely the first point starts to become a problem... Even moreso when the club signs Deco, Ronaldinho, Van Bommel and Edmilson, thus making their entire midfield non-club bred... And there are players like Xavi and Iniesta already on the bench. Arsenal was ready to give Fabregas playing time, and it paid off. That's all there is to it.

Likewise, I find it quite hypocritical of Barcelona fans to claim that Messi is "different". Yes, Barcelona agreed to pay for his hormonal growth treatment. Fair play to them. But he joined the club when he was 14. So to say he's a "Barcelona product" is in my eyes just as valid as saying Fabregas is an Arsenal product, since he was 16 when he joined them... Barcelona do their fair bit of poaching, except they're not very good at it. Dos Santos joined from Monterrey club when he was 13, Gai Assulin joined from Beitar Tubruk when he was 14, Oier Ozalabal joined from Real Union when he was 17, Alberto Botia joined from Real Murcia when he was 16... And they're just a few I can think of. Most of the players Wenger signs are players who are between 17 and 22 and lack playing time. Barcelona prefer to pay top dollar for players who are 24-30 and very well known. Fair play. But to claim Barcelona has a brilliant youth setup and Arsenal just go visiting the youth setups in each country to buy brilliant 15 year-olds by bending the rules is simply not true.
Ak

Difference of definitions I suppose, Inara: whereas your defition of a world class academy is functional, mine is theoretic. But even then, I think you're being harsh on Arsenal: I don't want to live in a world in which someone doesn't think Martin Keown is world class...
Jack

Greed, greed, and more greed. Ugh.

Arsenal's kiddies are definitely talented and fun to watch. But Arsenal shouldn't be allowed a second team in the pro ranks when there are already, what, 95 other pro teams. If these kids want first team action and they're not going to get it at Arsenal, then Arsenal should sell or loan them to other teams where they can get playing time.
Abby

Inara- I think your last paragraph is the point. Arsenal's youth program in its current incarnation is only about as old as the Wenger years, unlike, say, the long period that the La Masia system has been in place at Barcelona. It's only now that we're seeing the first major homegrown products because it takes time.

And Jack Wilshere is definitely a major prospect, as major as any club worldwide has in their academy. Even if Simpson, Hoyte, and Randall are possibly questionable, anyone who's seen Wilshere play can tell that he's something special.
Ak

To be fair, the quality of an English team's academy doesn't correlate with its youth products as well as for other countries' teams because the FA have that ridiculous 90 mile rule in place. Without that rule Arsenal could sign English youngsters from anywhere in the country and, I'm sure, produce as good a set of players as any team in Europe. Arsenal's youth academy is world class: it's not their fault if they're not filled with the best kids possible.
Fab4

Inara - Wilshere, Simpson, Hoyte, Randall. All 4 started yesterday, and all 4 have been at Arsenal since they were 9 years old. What was that about Arsenal not producing players from their academy?
fourstar

Jay Simpson has been at Arsenal since he was 9. Nine years old. Youth enough for you? I could go on.
Kelly

Inara, that is not completly correct what you are saying, since Wenger arrived at Arsenal he has completely remade the Arsenal Youth System, yes this has meant bringing in foreign youth talent, which he then develops into star players, but Arsenal has had success creating Premier League quality English players, they just either haven't been Arsenal quality, or have felt it is in their better interests to leave the club. Some of these players are Bentley, Cole, Pennant, Sidwell,etc. Also the current group of players, such as Randall, Landsbury, etc, are the first group to come through the academy starting from the age of about 9 since Arsene Wenger took over, so to be fair, Wenger's classes of youth English talent are just starting to come to the age where they are getting CC playing time.
So basically, dont talk down Arsenal's youth system, because along with being able to develop foreign talent, it can and will be producing future English stars as well.
Juliet

Germany has also long permitted its teams to play second teams in the lower divisions. Bayern Munich II, Stuttgart II, and Werder Bremen II play in the 3. Liga, and also permitted to play in the German Cup. I don't see why Arsenal couldn't field these guys in whatever the third league is in England (League One?).
Wayne

There was talk about English teams being allowed to enter their reserve teams in the lower divisions. I don't think it'd be fair to the other teams in that division. The dream of all Championship teams is to reach the EPL. By entering a team that really are just playing there for practice, with no possibility of promotion is an insult to the Championship. That's what I think.

I do however think that the Arsenal youths would probably win the Championship..