http://tinyurl.com/p8pvv Success matters more to Arsenal than the players' passports By Alan Hansen (Filed: 13/03/2006) When the final whistle sounded at Highbury yesterday, I doubt a single Arsenal fan in the crowd would have been bothered where Arsene Wenger's players came from. It would have been the same last Wednesday night against Real Madrid. Arsenal were through to a Champions League quarter-final and that was all that mattered. When the West Ham manager, Alan Pardew, made his remarks that he could not celebrate Arsenal's success because of the absence of English players in Wenger's team, it was not a new criticism. Recently, I argued that Wenger should sign English players, but there I was referring to the need for a big English-style centre forward to support Thierry Henry. What was on his passport was irrelevant. In 1986, I was part of a Liverpool side who won the FA Cup without fielding a single Englishman and the same comments were made then as now. And yet when we lifted the trophy, I can't believe a single Liverpool fan at Wembley would have complained. Then, of course, Liverpool's make-up was Scottish, Irish and Welsh rather than continental. But even then, 20 years ago, the idea that a club such as Celtic could have won the European Cup in 1967 with a team all from a 30-mile radius of Glasgow seemed outdated. When the Premier League was born and the price for failure became astronomical, players came in from abroad because they could do a job, they had the technique and it was easier than bringing your own players through. When the price of quality English footballers began going through the roof, it was also considerably cheaper to shop abroad. When I started in the professional game, I was at Partick Thistle three weeks after signing a contract. When I came to Liverpool in 1977, I was 22, they were European champions and I was in the side six weeks after signing. Clubs now take fewer risks. Too many young English footballers, aged 17 or 18, have the trappings of success, think they have made it and fall by the wayside. For all his talent, Joe Cole might have gone down that route. But he has worked at every aspect of his game and is a certainty for the World Cup. If you are a manager such as Wenger, take a look at Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad. How much would it cost Arsenal to buy any one of them? Managers tend to buy footballers they feel most comfortable with, which means that foreign managers tend to look abroad. At Liverpool, Gerard Houllier invested heavily in the French leagues, with very mixed results. Wenger has gone for young, foreign players, although he has spent a fortune on 16-year-old Theo Walcott. The question for Pardew is, if he had a choice of two similar players and one was foreign and cheap and the other was English and expensive, would he take the English option? Of course not. At White Hart Lane, Martin Jol has gone the other way. If Jermain Defoe starts, then the core of Jol's Tottenham side from the goalkeeper, through to midfield and attack, would be English. Wenger would probably like to buy English but, like all the great managers from Brian Clough to Jose Mourinho, his first loyalty is not to the English game but to the club who pay his wages. Whether those results would include taking Arsenal to a Champions League final is debatable. There are parallels between Arsenal this season and the Liverpool side who won the Champions League despite being beaten regularly away from Anfield in the Premiership. Wenger would have been delighted and astonished by how Real Madrid went about their task in the first leg at the Bernabeu. The way Arsenal fought at Highbury was a credit to them and they can still pass and move as well as any team in Europe. However, sooner or later they will come up against a side who will not give them the space Madrid did, who will close them down and put their foot in, just as clubs attack Arsenal in the Premiership. Juventus in the quarter-finals may be such a team. Liverpool's elimination was as unexpected as Arsenal's progress but you knew they would pay, ultimately, for their lack of real quality up front. It is a problem that also afflicts Chelsea. Their leading scorer this season and last is a midfielder, Frank Lampard, while Didier Drogba, on whom they spent ?24 million to lead their attack, has many attributes but composure and technique in front of goal are not among them. Ironically, the next player Jose Mourinho is ready to sign is another goalscoring midfielder, Michael Ballack. It would not be hard for Rafael Benitez to make his case to the Liverpool board. If he had Ruud van Nistelrooy or Wayne Rooney in his side, they could go toe to toe with Chelsea for the championship. Everybody at Liverpool knows this but they know Chelsea are also searching for goals and paying top-dollar for a striker at Stamford Bridge is a much simpler matter than it ever will be at Anfield. 如果红军有双尼其中一尼？ 或是如果蓝军有小罗？ 我还枪手如果有Gerrard的耶.... This is the reality, get on with it. --

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