young guns

big myth this youth stuff.

most of the current first teamers have been bought in by wenger and were already internationals.

The only genuine 1st teamers to come through the youth ranks are Jack and gibbs (originally at wimbledon).

chezzer was spotted at liga warsaw which was a no brainer as his dad was a top keeper.

ox was at southampton and jenko was at charlton. (we also paid big money for these)

the market is open now and wengers days of unearthing unknown talent on the cheap are behind him!

We only payed 1M for Jenko?

"If you don't count someone who spent two weeks at Luton (I believe) before joining us as a 9 year old, then you're a tough one to please."

it was Luton, I thought it was WHU and the point i was making, is i DO count wilshere, because we got him so young!

We only payed 1M for Jenko?
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a lot of dosh for a conference player

What about Gnabry? Wenger really rates him.

it was Luton, I thought it was WHU and the point i was making, is i DO count wilshere, because we got him so young!

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I see! I misunderstood.

Compare our record to Spurs' - they don't have a single first-team regular who's come through their academy. The closest they have is probably Tom Carroll, but he's 20 and rarely seems to get more than 10/20 minutes off the bench in low priority games.

The whole project youth thing involved the acquisition of young players and their development, not just the developing of English players. Due to the previous rules, had we done that we'd be limiting ourselves to only players within a 90 minute drive of the stadium.

Gnabry, looks good, we got him a few backs at 15-16 I think, but like Lansbury (who i rated) will he make it, who knows ...

What about Gnabry? Wenger really rates him
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wenger rates denilson/campbell/wellington/eisfeld/bischoff


none of these contributed much to Arsenal considering how much they cost in transfers/wages

Gibbs
Szczesny
Wilshere

3 first teamers is better than most.

How many academy players have United, City, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool brought through recently???

Welbeck, Cleverley, Evans
Richards
Bertrand
Caulker, Livermore??
Wisdom, Kelly

most of them are average or worse and don't make the first XI, we've got Gibbs and Wilshere who are top class. We play at the highest level people need to understand it's not easy to find kids in the local area and turn them into top players when the talent pool is so huge around the world.

including the foreign kids we've had way more youth players play a part in the first team than probably any or most other clubs, certainly top clubs.

They know when they sign all of them they won't all make it and it's trial and error, and it's rubbish to say they cost us in transfer fees and wages. We got Fabregas for nothing and sold him for £35m which has probably payed for transfer fees and wages of every failed youngster we've ever signed.