From Mike Joseph : Rhys Jaggar’s article
Serge Aurier is actually an Ivory Coast international – nothing to do with the French national team.
From James : Rhys baloney
Do we have to put up with Rhys’s vitriolic baloney about French patriotism?
How many Englishmen do you expect to come through a London academy that is so restricted in geographic scope, compared to our northern and south-coast rivals?
Couple this nonsense with the fabled ‘British core’ of new contract renewals, as well as the fact that all of them effectively have to be poached, much like the French (and German, and Spanish) players, due to the aforementioned geographical restrictions.
Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
From Matthew Wade: Re Rhys Jaggar
I seriously hope Rhys Jagger has been influenced by your Van Gaal scouting joke and has responded in kind.
Either that or his enmity towards the man he loves to criticise even more than yourself has reached tin-foil hat conspiracy theory levels.
The idea that anyone would spearhead the investment of millions in an academy system purely ensure it would become self-sustaining in its production of youngsters (and no more) is mad enough.
Adding to that the idea of that this is all part of a masterplan to ensure the development of French youngsters is laughable, particularly when using a tabloid link to a 28 year old centre-back already in the French national set up.
The other chap has had 2 great years, is remarkably cheap, can fill-in anywhere across the back 4 and has been lobbying anyone who will listen for a move to Arsenal for years, being a boyhood fan.
Some more plausible explanations for the number of French players compared to English kids during Arsene’s time in the hot-seat.
1) Better contacts in France than anywhere else.
2) The comparatively deflated price levels of the French Market.
3) The better established academy system in France.
4) The price premium on English players.
5) The luck involved in developing youngsters. The likes of Jay Emmanuel Thomas, David Bentley, Henri Lansbury, Kyle Bartley, Rhys Thomas, Benik Afobe and many more have been given a taste of the first team, but for reasons of immaturity, illness, injury or lack of physical development haven’t reached the aspirational levels set for them.
6) The Academy has been semi-autonomously run for a while. Brady has been the driving force, and many of the less respected coaches were brought in by him. The idea of a revolution at youth level to allay Wenger’s sabotage is mindblowingly paranoid.
Brady was retiring. The Academy had been losing its way for 3 or 4 years.
There had been a major turnover of coaches. We all knew a change was due, and equally all knew that it would happen once Brady stepped down. We all have our preferences and favourites, but Rhys’s attacks on the manager are becoming more and more bizarre, and are drawing on less and less evidence.
You and I disagree on the degree to which it is a problem, but basically agree that Wenger has a zealous philosophical nature that grew into control-freakery when he was left to fill too many vacuums by the previous board, and that Gazidis is slowly redressing that balance without upsetting the apple cart too much.
But stubborness, manipulation of the media and his power-base and naive idealism don’t quite add up to Rhys’s Bond Villain-esque theories.