English success in the Champions League could be a double edged sword
Last updated 10/13/2008 11:11:13 AM
English success in the Champions League could be a double edged sword
The continued English success in the Champions League, where all four English clubs already look set for the lucrative knock out stages, could be a double edged sword.
The strength and talent of holders Manchester United, runners-up Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool is a constant worry for UEFA and their president Michel Platini and looks certain to hasten on changes in the tournament's qualifying agenda and, more significantly for the Premier League, a demand for a significant number of local born players.
Platini, never well disposed towards the English, wants to see quotas, despite European Union laws on free movement of European citizens.
But his fellow countryman Arsene Wenger is already ahead of him as, for the first time in his twelve years at Arsenal, this shrewd manager has suddenly and miraculously produced a crop of English talent that can only be compared with the great years of Manchester United.
Against Sheffield United recently in the Carling Cup, Wenger's regular testing ground for his youth, Arsenal played a team average age of 19 and with seven British players on the pitch at the end of the game as the Gunners beat an experienced and expectant Sheffield United side 6-0 with "veteran" goalkeeper Pole Lukasz Fabianski, at 23 years or age seven years older than the youngest, substitute Emmanuel Frimpong.
Pride of the crop of local kids is Home Counties boy Jack Wilshere at 16 years and 267 days with Ghana born England Youth international Frimpong ten days younger.
Wenger is delighted that his obvious change in policy has worked so well, saying: "This is the best group of youngsters I have had here and I wouldn't be scared of playing any of them as individuals in the first team because they all have talent."
Wenger could see the problem over foreign players brewing from afar and he is showing he is ready for the inevitable change, no matter what the numbers game nominated by the ruling body and sanctioned by the European Union.
Wilshere is already being fast tracked to the senior side and Wenger has displayed in the past that he is not afraid to plunge kids in at the deep end – just look at the triumph of Cesc Fabregas.