Written by Fab4.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has claimed he didn’t buy a midfielder during the summer in order to give young players like Jack Wilshere a chance at first team football.
Speaking at a Shareholders Q&A on Thursday night, Wenger explained his reasoning behind his decision to overlook the midfield area when making additions to his squad and highlighted Wilshere as an example of the kind of young player he wanted to show faith in.
“I believe that I always wanted to develop the players I have,” said Wenger. “For example we have Diaby, we have Song, we have Denilson in this position, we have bought Aaron Ramsey – 18 years old – in this position, and now Jack Wilshere develops in this position.
“The problem when you develop a young team, for example we have Jack who was born in 1992 – 18 years old – is that if I don’t make room for him he will go somewhere.
“People will say to me: ‘Why did you let him go? Look at what a good player he is.’ But if you don’t play him [he will go] and that’s the tricky situation of developing young players. First you have to scout them, then give them a good education but the final part is to be strong enough to say ‘I will give this boy a chance to play’.
“The first two stages are not too difficult but the third stage you have to be strong, to face the critics and the people who want always the best players in the world and to say ‘No, I believe in you, I will give you a chance.’ And I believe if we can be proud of one thing we did in recent years, it is that we have done that very well with a lot of support from the Board.
“But it is time now for us to keep these players together and to develop them and to win. Then we can say we have created something special with a style of play we wanted to create, that is unique, with the values that we want to put forward at the Club, and as well with an expectation level to have a team together for a few years.
“That is why we were absolutely adamant to keep Fabregas as well because we have worked hard in the last five years to get this team together.”
Arsene is telling us what we already know, that he chooses to develop the young players at the club instead of buying expensive established stars and i am fully supportive of this strategy, as long as the young players he plays show sufficient quality and progression to warrant first team football for Arsenal FC.
In my opinion players like Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Kieran Gibbs, Theo Walcott, Song and to a certain extent Abou Diaby and Carlos Vela, all deserve a chance at first team football at a young age because they have the obvious talent to make it if given the opportunity. So given the choice of signing a £10m 27-year-old or playing Jack Wilshere, i’d pick Wilshere every time. But there are certain players in the Arsenal squad who get game-time and it’s clear to most that they will never go on to great things. This is when i have a problem with ‘project youth’.
Give the real talent a chance and drop the rest. If that gives us space in the squad for a couple of world-class players then great. But one thing if for sure…I’m really excited by our new midfield trio of Song, Fabregas and Wilshere!
