The Most Important Thing

This week here on Vital there have been many comments about clubs and the players nationalities. Much has been said about Arsenal and its players and lack of English players and questions have been raised whether it is right for a British club to field so many foreigners.

Arsene Wenger has said many times that if a player is good enough then he plays no matter what his nationality, yet many quarters of the games supporters continue to berate that comment and call us names.

I have a different stance, my opinion is that the name on the front of the shirt is more important than then name on the back, and I don`t mean the sponsor.

Do fans really worry about where the player is born, if they produce the type of football that wins your beloved team games, does it matter? I would ask any supporter, if you fielded 11 non British players and won the league, would you be saying “oh excuse me; we would prefer to win the league with British players!” I very much doubt it.

When I first started going to Arsenal games, the team was made up of English, Irish & Scottish players, but I remember looking at the European players dreaming of seeing them come to Highbury and play their attractive style of play and bring a different type of football, the beautiful game. Now don’t get me wrong, just because they are foreign doesn’t automatically bring quality and skill, and many a manager has had a few blunders, our own Arsene himself.

But what else do they bring? I think they bring professionalism, you don’t hear of the foreign players out on the town living it up till the early hours, they treat their bodies with respect as their bodies are their living at the end of the day. It can be said the English mentality is to get drunk, to party hard and is probably what has held us back as a nation for so many years. Players like Gazza who had so much talent but wasted it, Tony Adam and Paul Merson, great players but what would they have become if they were more like the Henry`s and Zidane’s of this world?

At the end of the day, the most important thing is I don’t care who plays for my team as long as they win, the name on the front is Arsenal and it doesn’t matter to me who the name on the back is, it`s about my team playing well and winning.

Article submitted by PureGold




Articles submitted by Vital Arsenal members are based on the opinion of the member and not necessarily the view’s of the network itself.