Arsenal Reserve players that you think will make it at Arsenal

[Grebbo]

Pretty much mate. Per-ritty much.

Strange. For all the bollocks about money and stuff...all Wenger needed to do, was buy two players in the January transfer window, the year Eduardo broke his leg. We would have won the league had he spent decent money on a top draw striker, and a quality CB. The knock on effect of that end to the season fucked the whole thing.

One of life's mysteries. It's criminal really that we had RVP, Cesc, Nasri even AdeWhoreBag and won fuck all. All it needed was a decent GK and central defender and Eduardo replacement.

Massive fuck up by Wenger.

[Kano]

I guess it depends what you class as a youth policy, some of those hardly came through our youth ranks, they were bought from other clubs very late on into their development.

The 10 year plan for me was about bringing players right through the ranks, like Wilshere, not poaching them from other clubs when they have been brought up by them.

wilshere came from luton originally. giggs was a man city boy too. the youth policy was for young players who could be taught the 'wengerball' way and i don't think it mattered where they came from because they were all young enough to be developed into the way the manager wanted them to play - their formative football years were spent under our guidance and that was the whole point. the idea was by the time they reach the first team, they would be only identifiable as arsenal players and nothing else.

[Özim]

wilshere came from luton originally. giggs was a man city boy too. the youth policy was for young players who could be taught the 'wengerball' way and i don't think it mattered where they came from because they were all young enough to be developed into the way the manager wanted them to play - their formative football years were spent under our guidance and that was the whole point. the idea was by the time they reach the first team, they would be only identifiable as arsenal players and nothing else.

I think those cases are a bit different, they arrived at a very young age and thus learnt most of their trade with the clubs, the likes of Song, Ox, Walcott were 17+ and thus spent a lot of their development years with their first clubs...IMO that's not really coming through the youth ranks....it's not hard for top clubs to take advantage of loopholes and smaller clubs to grab the most promising players who have been taught by other clubs.

How many of our players have actually come through the youth ranks.....not many that I can think of, although it's not always the case it also doesn't encourage loyalty as these players don't have the same affinity for the club as those who come through the youths like Wilshere (someone is bound to bring up Cole but that was not the norm, it was an unusual case).

[-Xs-]

Cole was actually a typical case for Arsenal though. He wanted more money but the club were unwilling to meet demands.

Funny how we will pay out on dross but not go that little bit extra for our better performers.

Cole may be a ****, but 65k a week for arguably one the the best left backs in the league for the past 10 years would have been a steal with all the new money that's come in.

[GP]

Cole was actually a typical case for Arsenal though. He wanted more money but the club were unwilling to meet demands.

Funny how we will pay out on dross but not go that little bit extra for our better performers.

Cole may be a ****, but 65k a week for arguably one the the best left backs in the league for the past 10 years would have been a steal with all the new money that's come in.

Yep, and he would have got it if he hadn't been an utter ****.

[Kano]

I think those cases are a bit different, they arrived at a very young age and thus learnt most of their trade with the clubs, the likes of Song, Ox, Walcott were 17+ and thus spent a lot of their development years with their first clubs...IMO that's not really coming through the youth ranks....it's not hard for top clubs to take advantage of loopholes and smaller clubs to grab the most promising players who have been taught by other clubs.

How many of our players have actually come through the youth ranks.....not many that I can think of, although it's not always the case it also doesn't encourage loyalty as these players don't have the same affinity for the club as those who come through the youths like Wilshere (someone is bound to bring up Cole but that was not the norm, it was an unusual case).

our style of football was unique and different to any of those that these kids had learnt at their clubs. the mid/latter teenage years of development are supposed to be the most crucial which is where all of these players were when they arrived. in many ways they had to re-learn their approach to the game because the possession idea was so different to where they had come from and their raw talent still had to be nurtured. i don't think wenger ever came out to say our youth policy was solely about finding kids from under ten and taking them all the way through.

put it this way - if wenger had got in the right experienced players around them, things would probably have been different and not one of us would be looking back casting doubt on whether this was a 'true' youth policy or not. and let's not think that loyalty is not directly associated with success - only on very rare occasions will a player stick with a team he was raised by through thick and thin until the end of his career.

[Özim]

Cole was actually a typical case for Arsenal though. He wanted more money but the club were unwilling to meet demands.

Funny how we will pay out on dross but not go that little bit extra for our better performers.

Cole may be a ****, but 65k a week for arguably one the the best left backs in the league for the past 10 years would have been a steal with all the new money that's come in.

We took a hard stance and paid the price, we lost one of the best full backs in the game for a few million effectively....sometimes you have to do the necessary to keep players who are a bit special (like RVP etc).

Ironically we could have given him the money and then sold him for a packet if we'd wanted to.

[Özim]

our style of football was unique and different to any of those that these kids had learnt at their clubs. the mid/latter teenage years of development are supposed to be the most crucial which is where all of these players were when they arrived. in many ways they had to re-learn their approach to the game because the possession idea was so different to where they had come from and their raw talent still had to be nurtured. i don't think wenger ever came out to say our youth policy was solely about finding kids from under ten and taking them all the way through.

put it this way - if wenger had got in the right experienced players around them, things would probably have been different and not one of us would be looking back casting doubt on whether this was a 'true' youth policy or not. and let's not think that loyalty is not directly associated with success - only on very rare occasions will a player stick with a team he was raised by through thick and thin until the end of his career.

Rooney was bought by Man U at 17 and he was already some player, I personally think that by the age of 17 you're already well on your way...you can see the real potential....all the top players have shown it, the likes of Messi, Ronaldo etc they may have been inconsistent but the basis of their game was already developed, they just need some games and some, quality experience around them as well.

You could say that in a way our youth policy was flawed as we never provided them with the necessary experienced winners to play alongside (as you already mentioned), which in a sense means we failed them.

[Marc Overmars]

We took a hard stance and paid the price, we lost one of the best full backs in the game for a few million effectively....sometimes you have to do the necessary to keep players who are a bit special (like RVP etc).

Ironically we could have given him the money and then sold him for a packet if we'd wanted to.

I don't think there was much we could have done about Cole, he wanted to be with his England buddies because Arsenal had become too foreign for him.

[Özim]

I don't think there was much we could have done about Cole, he wanted to be with his England buddies because Arsenal had become too foreign for him.

I'm not sure that was the case when we were negotiating the contract to be honest, didn't that come out afterwards when he had some bitter words to say?