UEFA Champions League/Europa League 15/16/17 Feb *** Spoilers ***

Greenlizard0 said:
My understanding is that you can play in the Champions League before the Jan transfer window and drop to the Europa League, obviously, because a player's own club may well go down that path. :p

You can't go the other way, or stay in either competition with two different clubs though.

So as Ajax were in this year's Champions League, my understanding of the stupidly complex rules is that he's fine for Liverpool in Europe for the rest of the year.
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Thanks for that!
 
GiT said:
Does anyone else think that ITV "interviewer" is a bit of an 4rs3? I see the highlights blanked out his speaking thankfully.
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Do you mean the one interrupting Arsene Wenger?

[Paraphrased of course; Arsene asked whether Arsenal will play negatively like Inter:]
"No, we are..."

"[Interrupting] What's stopping your team from parking the bus tonight, Arsene?"

"No, we are..."

"[Interrupting; loud] WHY NOT"

*Pause*

"We're not a team that has defenders in the midfield..."

Remember thinking he was a bit of a **** too, glad you brought it up. I mean, fair enough if he's dodging questions, and let's face it it's a lot of what Wenger does, but he was perfectly reasonable all the way through in spite of interruptions and/or stupid questions.
 
Rude and had stupid questions by the bucketload: asked Djourou if he thought Arsenal could win the game. He rightly answered what's the point in turning up if he doesn't.
 
Idiot interviewers are cringe worthy at times.

I remember a particularly terrible one at Wimbledon a few years back. I think it was Keovathong who'd just been knocked out. She's British, played her socks off but lost and everybody knew her talent had got her as far as possible.

Bordering on tears the interviewer's first question was something along the lines of 'do you think you've let everybody down, but not only that let yourself down?' Unsurprisingly the lass bailed after a few seconds.

:rolleyes:

I can't understand why a lot of sports people are arsey to interviewers, and I often think some of their uncharacteristic comments probably stem from them.
 
Great win for Arsenal. Took me totally by surprised I'll admit after Barca going one up.

Still all to do in the Camp Nou and I can't quite see Arsenal being the defensive type.
 
Well done Arsenal - 2nd half they showed balls of steel, put Barca under pressure and I hope they get at least a draw in the 2nd leg.

Szczesny and Koscielny were fantastic, while Wilshire is becoming a class act.

Barcelona's passing at time was amazing but it's all about goals and Arsenal got 2, while Barca only 1 :)
 
Garido said:
Thanks for sorting that out. So Newts, again Arsenal showing great value :)
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Originally Posted by dante6491 View Post
Woz: Free (Home grown)
Clichy: Free (Hg)
Johan Dj: Free (Hg)
Kos: £8.45m
Eboue: Undisclosed
Song: £1m (HG)
Wilshire: Free (HG)
Cesc: Free (Hg)
Nasri: £12.5m
Theo: £5-£12m (Hg)
RvP: £2.75m
Arshavin: Undisclosed (~£15m)
Bender: Free (Hg)

So everyone who played for Arsenal today cost between £52.7m and £59.7m

Valdes: Free (Hg)
Pique: E 11.5m (Hg-ish, they had to buy him back)
Maxwell E 5m
Abidal E 15m
Alves £23-£30m
Iniesta: Free (Hg)
Xavi: Free (Hg)
Busquets: Free (Hg)
Pedro: Free (Hg)
Messi: Free (Hg)
Villa: E 40m
Keita: E14m
Correia: E 9.5-E 13

Barcelona cost E95-E99 plus £23-£30m for Alves at whatever the Euro rate is. So ~E122.5m to E128m
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CBA'd to go back and quote Barca's homegrown players were actually just that, they were bought in from youth teams and played for a significant time before playing in the first team.

Lets take Szczesny, he's been at Arsenal for 5 years, he got his first league games this year. He's a player we brought in young and trained properly.

Clichy we got years ago, he played 12-13 games in the season we bought him, more starts than sub appearances.

Wilshire we've had for donkeys years already and he's only just started playing.

"homegrown" is a new term, and its being used incorrectly in this situation. Homegrown is just about a player playing 3 years pre 21 at the club, it means nothing. Cesc, Bendtner, Djourou, Clichy, Song, Theo, all joined the club at "starting games in the league/cup" level, not as 10-14yr olds with years of training before them. WE bought first teamers, the vast majority of Barca's squad has been at Barca, or had been at Barca for 5-10 years before getting first team games. I assume Rooney counts as homegrown for Utd as he played for 3 years there pre 21, but you can't say he's a product of the youth team/academy there. He was very clearly bought as a first team player, ok not particularly cheap in that case, but Everton "grew" him as a player, Utd just bought it.

Wilshire, and now Szczesny are two of VERY few proper youth players Arsenal have, or have had for some time. Before that, Cole, our other proper come through the youth ranks players were guys like the Hoytes, who barely played and frankly were/are rubbish.

Yes, we got great deals and we buy them right on the cusp of looking like the real deal, but we still bought people ready to go into the first team.

The only reason Clichy/Djourou didn't start getting games earlier were lots of long term injuries, and Cole's form on top of CLichy's injuries.

Barca take very raw VERY young talent and turn it into footballing greats, Arsenal really do buy almost the entire squad.

Using young players, and having youth players are very different things. Wenger is willing, maybe more than most, to give younger players a chance to shine, but brining clubs through the youth ranks, Arsenal rarely, very rarely get a top notch player out of the academy. Wilshire was essentially the first since Cole.

THeres nothing wrong, or right about either method, I just find it irritating that Wenger/Arsenal are seen as having a great youth setup and fantastic ability to bring players through, we don't at all, we've bought everyone of note whose won anything at the club in the past 7-8 years, most of the "homegrown" players before then came through long before Wenger joined Arsenal.

Especially as our youth team was absolutely outplayed by Chelsea's youth team in the youth cup recently, draw, but flukey goal and just ridiculously one sided game, which was shortly after a 10-1 drubbing by Villa's youth team :p
 
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No1newts said:
I was pulling someone for making a vague statement about Barca spending mega money as if Arsenal never did. Especially as Barca are famed fir their own youth development program. It merely developed from there as an interesting discussion point so untwist your panties.

Shocked that RvP only cost 2.5mil. That was a snip!

I'm not bothered about you over analysing my comments as I still think it was a good win, but a few lucky calls helped with it.
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Easy tiger. I think the issue here is you got caught out. You love those backhanded compliments though. Since you always seem to bring up luck, I'd say Newcastle got more luck against us, than we did against Barca tonight :)
 
I do think the home grown argument is quite apt when we talk about the CL. However the "home grown" title can mean anything these days.

To see 6+ British/Irish players doing well in one EPL team playing in the CL would be VERY good to see. Maybe the UTD 99 team was the last successful EPL team to boast such numbers (including subs).
 
GiT said:
I do think the home grown argument is quite apt when we talk about the CL. However the "home grown" title can mean anything these days.

To see 6+ British/Irish players doing well in one EPL team playing in the CL would be VERY good to see. Maybe the UTD 99 team was the last successful EPL team to boast such numbers (including subs).
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More than a possibility.


Gomes
Hutton Woodgate Dawson Assou-Ekotto
Lennon Huddlestone Jenas Bale
Defoe Crouch

Now, all but one of those players isn't a guaranteed starter when fully fit. Jenas. But, you've still got a 8 man, UK spine there even without him.

Could be argued that Huddlestone would need to work his way back into the squad when he returns from injury, but he was preferred to Palacios before that.


"Doing well" is another matter. :p
 
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