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  • geoj geoj Oct 24, 2009 20:13 Flag

    Foreign 'mercenaries'

    I write as an #$%$nal supporter in response to some utter rot that has been written in recent weeks about 'foreign mercenaries' in the English game... (a familiar topic, I know).

    Forgive me, but isn't that the way that the EPL has gone since taking the Sky megabucks more than 15 years ago.

    John Terry, Gerrard and Scholes are amongst a dying breed - one club players who stick with their hometown teams - and both Terry and Gerrard have flirted with the notion of leaving...

    Lets not complain that The #$%$ are packed with 'mercenaries' because they are peopled with players from France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, and the countries of Africa.

    They don't have union jacks tattooed on their #$%$, and may not swill 15 pints of ale (with champagne chasers) on a Saturday night (Stand up Ledley, Woodgate, Crouch, Dafoe et al).

    And, you will note, nor do such Euro mercenaries as Clichy, Diaby, Sagna, Fabregas, Van Persie, etc flounce off at the prospect of more bling just around the corner... unlike, lets say, the ever loyal, die for the cause 'local lad' Cashley Cole, who headed off to play dour, rubbish football in the nasty corrupting, monied environment of Abramovic's Chelsea because #$%$nal were trying to run their club as a viable business that could only afford to pay him £55k a week plus bonuses...

    Five managers later and he's still there, probably whinging that he's not being paid enough, and dreaming of the main chance of making more dosh and kissing the badge at Barcelona, Real, or in Milan. Loyalty - indeed its a uniquely English attribute.

    It's total rot to caricature home grown players as 'loyal', and johnny foreigner as mercenaries. The best players play in Britain because its where they can earn the most. Playing football is a business for which they get paid - geddit.

    #$%$ne Wenger has forgone the 'buy at all costs spend as much as you can get' philosophy just so that he could foster loyalty in a different manner - by assembling a young group of players and building a true team spirit between them.

    Come next May we will have silverware (despite/because of all the pressure), we will continue to play inventive, attacking football, we will at times be hopelessly naive, and we will be supporting a club with a business plan that does not rely on the largesse of transient 'investors' who are the real mercenaries in football, as anyone who has oxygen going to their cerebral cortex will be able to see.

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    • Fool. Arsenal have one English player, albeit a terrible one in Wallcott, who will always play second fiddle to Aaron Lennon. Defoe, to my knowledge, has never been snapped whilst a Spurs player getting drunk and disorderly.
      Arsenal is full of mercenaries. Fibreglass and Arseshaven have both said they would leave to go to Barcelona. Adebayor is the biggest mercenary in football, always claiming bigger teams wanted him while he was at Arsenal. Toure left you after years of service to go for more money.
      Let's face it, Spurs have had and do have mercenaries (Pav, Bent, Keane, Berbs, etc) but nothing compared to Arsenal. You are in your own league.

      • 3 Replies to Jake
      • Yawn.

        Usual rubbish from a Spurs #$%$

      • ...and to pick up your other point about Arsenal having only one English player....
        That most English players are technically limited, over-priced, and seem to be unable to stay out of the boozer is clearly not a consideration for a team that has such Nightclub lounge-rats as Defoe, Crouch, Huddlestone, Woodgate and Ledley in their midst - so with Walcott, Wilshire, Gibbs and an array of U-20s in the wings, I think Arsenal are doing about as well as could be expected with the English players that are available (and not overpriced)

      • ".... never been snapped whilst a Spurs player getting drunk..."
        Now there's a qualifier for you. I'd agree that Spuds have mercenaries, and clearly wouldn't deny that Adebeyor was one. But this old nugget about Fabregas being a mercenary because he has been honest enough to say that he would some day like to play for his home-town club is as lame as they come. The guy simply wants to play for Barcelona at some point in his career, and at least he's not like that 'loveable rogue' 'arry whose spent years saying one thing and doing another - professing undying loyalty to Pompey only to take the shilling and go to S'hampton, declaring loyalty there only to head back to Pompey, and then rubbishing the speculation that he would go to Spuds just days before he does exactly that....