Rich

Wasn't just concerning that particular comment, tbh. Although, 15%-20% is quite a range, tbh.

It will be interesting to see what effect the UEFA ruling does have, not that it effects us a great deal at present with the number of English/British players we currently have on our books. It will certainly be interesting to see if Wenger starts bringing in more domestic players now. Keep your eye open. Technically, as well, 25 people voted for change as opposed to 18 who said nothing should be done.

Made some very good saves in both games against us, but was incredibly eccentric in the first leg.

...according to this board it not only isn't neccessary....No one has even given it a second thought...And most of you thought I was in cuckoo land..Saving it up you see. blueyes.gif I am win. You cannot lump me in with that lot, man, howay. My posts were down the middle. I'm claiming the win for the middle ground here, as usual. Grey > Black/White.

Yes, because UEFA always do the right thing. Have a word, man. This rule isn't exactly new potatoes, either, it's in FM07 already.

;D First real "laugh out loud" moment on here since the "if forumers were Wrestlers" thread.

Ok I missed Toldo... Esposito I'll look up....He is actually Italian. blueyes.gif Wow!! We found another one. So there are two-thirds more Italian players at the club than you said there were. I grow more and more suspiscious of you by the day. How many non-Italians are there? 24. It has to be asked why bother calling it the European champions league? When it isn't anything of th kind and totally non-reflective of domestic games. Well? Doesn't change the fact that your flagrant propaganda was "wide of the mark" by a long, long way! Why Inter, btw? Are there any other Italian teams with such a heavy ratio against domestic players? I've just had a brief look at Roma and Lazio and saw many, many Italians. AC Milan have over 20, easily, in 37 players listed on Soccernet.

Don't see why Milner can't move over and oust Duff. Milner - Emre/Parker/Zog - Butt/Parker - Dyer behind Martins and Owen wouldn't be half bad. Well of course it's reasonable: but will Roeder select Milner ahead of Duff and/or Dyer? It's highly unlikely.

Man City have the 6th best defence in the league, matey, 35 goals against. We've conceded 41 and are joint 11th with Reading. Do you really know nowt? Or is it all an act?

He's not a striker, anyway. His best position is right-midfield, surely. He's only playing up there because there's nobody else available. Things start to get difficult for him if Owen and Martins stay fit because he'll either oust Milner or Butt from the starting eleven, both decisions that will not prove popular with the masses. At the minute he's been relatively free from critique (aside from Ally) because he's being played up-front alongside a similar sort of partner, rather than alongside a Shearer/Ameobi. When he starts playing badly and he's keeping a fan-favourite out of the team, you'll see far more people calling for his head. Hopefully that won't happen and he'll be fucking mint, but it's extremely doubtful.

Richard Dunne is the white Titus Bramble, fact. He's fucking hopeless That settles it, tbh. I'd definitely have Dunne here now.

Who would buy him? How much for?

Ok I missed Toldo... Esposito I'll look up....He is actually Italian. blueyes.gif Wow!! We found another one. So there are two-thirds more Italian players at the club than you said there were. I grow more and more suspiscious of you by the day.

It's great how Villa fans are actually giving O'Neill time and patience to put his stamp on the club, a manager most people on here would have jumped through hoops to get ahead of Souness and Roeder, and we're slagging him off for them because he hasn't turned them into world-beaters in 8 months. People are quick to forget that the whole club at Villa is changing/being remodelled after Ellis, it's not simply a manager stepping into an already-prepared set-up, the whole club has been shaken to the core and is probably getting turned around for the better. I hope he does well there, because Villa are one of the few clubs I can't say too many bad words about - if any at all. Actually, Lee Hendrie are two that I could say, but that's about it - and he's not even really there at all these days. Martin O'Neill as well, I can even forgive him his shite punditry because he generally seems like a bloke with his head screwed on. Villa deserve some respite after suffering Ellis for as long as they did towards the end, I don't know how anyone could deny them a bit of hope/optimism, despite their current situation.

About the high-ball situation: there was a concerted effort on Monday to play it out from the back, from what I could see. With a proper left-back in there and another centre-back who is decent on the ball (i.e. not Onyewu), this gave me quite a bit of hope for next season as it seemed a definitive new "ploy". Most of the time it went to waste, like, because Harper came on and was about as horizontal as possible, constantly wasting outlets that Carr and Solano had attempted to provide for him. Nevertheless, it definitely seemed to me like the penny had dropped and that we're going to attempt to build from the back in future a bit more. I don't see it as concerted effort to play it from the back but more the difference that Emre makes to the team. He is always looking to come back collect the ball from the defenders and then play it out. This simply doesn't happen with Parker and Butt in the middle as neither ever come looking for the ball, forcing our defenders to hoof it long. Fuck's sake man, that's not what I said at all.. If you watched the game you should have noticed that the full-backs were constantly dropping deep and asking for the ball from Given/Harper in order to build from the back, instead of lumping it forward to Martins/Milner at every opportunity. Even Taylor and Onywu got balls to feet at some points in the game. It had absolutely nothing to do with Emre being in the team at all and was most definitely a case of "let's stop hitting aimless balls forward". Unless Emre told Roeder to employ it, he cannot take the credit for it. As I said, most times we missed out because of Harper/Given taking too long and then being forced to punt it towards Milner (who again won his fair share), but it was definitely a gameplan to get the ball to defenders if the opportunity arose and to build from the back. It was as plain as day to see inside the ground.

About the high-ball situation: there was a concerted effort on Monday to play it out from the back, from what I could see. With a proper left-back in there and another centre-back who is decent on the ball (i.e. not Onyewu), this gave me quite a bit of hope for next season as it seemed a definitive new "ploy". Most of the time it went to waste, like, because Harper came on and was about as horizontal as possible, constantly wasting outlets that Carr and Solano had attempted to provide for him. Nevertheless, it definitely seemed to me like the penny had dropped and that we're going to attempt to build from the back in future a bit more.

Espositio is Italian, is he not? What about Toldo?

Thing is, as I've said re: Walcott, the media hype in this country and the money in football is such that young players tend to be worth ridiculously high amounts of it, meaning that it's an obvious solution for clubs to look elsewhere (like we have done with Krul and N'Zogbia). If Wenger was bringing in truckloads of shite, then I'd understand your point a bit more and sympathise more, but the fact is there is not one player in the 16 named yesterday who I would say "no" to Newcastle having in various capacities. I'd be interested to know if Wenger could have realistically signed English players of similar/better quality to the likes of Clichy, Eboue, Toure, Aliadiere and Diaby for the same sort of money.

My other post was better, comment on that one as well. As for the Shearer comment, it's another difficult one to call because when young players are good enough they are generally still given the chance to play. Rooney at Everton is the obvious recent example and there are numerous others littered throughout the current Premiership who prove that there is still a decent turnover of quality players coming out of this country. In the long-run it's quite possible that the likes of Arsenal and their approach could benefit our game at all levels, because people have had their eyes opened to the importance of scouting networks and young players who can be signed for relatively small amounts of cash. No doubt we will have missed out on some potential quality lately, but has it ever been different? It's really the lower level clubs who need to carry the baton for development of this nature, because they are the ones who will benefit the most from it. Although they obviously have less money and power than the likes of us and Arsenal, they are generally more reliant upon local talent and should perhaps be given more funding to improve their own academy systems/youth set-ups. That could be another alternative, right there. Why should all quality players come from Premiership academies? It's probably better for all concerned if "lesser" clubs were given help in creating the stars of tomorrow.

Should add that having a minimum requirement of English players in a matchday squad would definitely give clubs more reason/incentive to get involved more in development from the earliest of ages, which could perhaps only be a good thing for youth football and the future of the national team. It tends to be dog-eat-dog and so in the short-term a solution like this one could have it's problems, but they may well get ironed out down the line when more and more money has been put into academies and youth development, in order to make sure that the English players in squads are good enough to actually play.

16 players and no Englishmen IS a worry, no doubt. Surely working at the root of the problem (grassroots football/youth football) is the way forward, though, at least for now? If English players were good enough to play for Arsenal, then they would play, it's as simple as that. I'm sure Wenger scouts in this country as much as he does elsewhere, but the difference tends to be the money he paid for Walcott versus the money he'd have to pay for a 16-year-old from Senegal or France who had shown similar promise to Walcott. I think bringing in a player limit could bring as many problems as solutions as some clubs would be forced to have sub-standard players, it could harm the development of some youngsters rather than help it if they were getting fast-tracked and people could just buy English to conform to the rules, then never ever play them. Which does even more harm than good to our game. It's not as simple as putting a cap on foreigners or something like that. My initial thought was to suggest increasing the number of subs to 7 and then asking for 3 of the 18 named players to be English, in England of course, but then I started seeing that even something like that had it's fair share of drawbacks.

Yep Owen and Martins, I can see them wroking aswell. Owen is a instinctive predator who hangs around waiting for a chance where as Oba likes to drop deep, pick up the ball and hit belters from distance. Bit more work needs to be done on Martins overall build up play but they could be exceptional with each other! For the record, I can't see them working, but I hope that they do.

I'd be interested to see how many times he has done and like I said before, I'm sure the Doc will fill us in on this whole thing. To me, Dunne seems to be more of a leader and we already have the obvious Irish connections here that would be a platform for him coming. It's obviously all pie-in-the-sky as he might not want to leave City, but I think he'd probably do better here than Sylvain would.

Has to be Owen & Martins, simply because of their reputations/price-tags. I can't see Ameobi getting a game ahead of those, if they're fit, whatever game it is. Like I've said elsewhere, it might not come off or one of them might get a bad injury and Ameobi will come back into it, but he's most definitely going to be "3rd choice" initially - and rightly so. A lot of people cannot wait to see Owen and Martins together and I'm one of them, I just really hope they click. Or even if they don't click, I hope they score plenty of goals apiece.