By Tony Attwood
After each transfer window I like to try and wrap things up with the publication of Arsenal’s list of 25 players registered with the Premier League and then separate them into home grown and foreign grown.
But this year there is something fishy. For example Jeorge Bird, who is normally 100% reliable on such matters has said, “There are ten homegrown players on Arsenal’s senior list – Hector Bellerin, Bramall, Rob Holding, Iliev, Alex Iwobi, Carl Jenkinson, Emiliano Martinez, Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck.” You’ll have noticed that the ten is actually nine.
OK you will say, I am just being picky, everyone can make a slight slip just once, and as a person who makes a dozen slips a day (and that’s on a good day) I agree. But then take a look at the Arsenal list that appears on the official Premier League site for home growns…
As always they list the HGs with an asterisk, and this is a cut and paste direct from the official site, with me just adding the numbers to help me make my point…
Squad Players home grown.
- Bellerin, Hector*
- Holding, Robert Samuel*
- Iliev, Deyan*
- Iwobi, Alex*
- Jenkinson, Carl Daniel*
- Martinez, Damian Emiliano*
- Ramsey, Aaron James*
- Welbeck, Daniel*
Yep that is eight. So what has happened? Here is the rest of the official list
Squad players (Foreign cultivated)
- Aubameyang, Pierre-Emerick
- Bramall, Cohen
- Cech, Petr
- Elneny, Mohamed Naser Elsayed
- Kolasinac, Sead
- Koscielny, Laurent
- Lacazette, Alexandre
- Leno, Bernd
- Lichtsteiner, Stephan
- Mkhitaryan, Henrikh
- Monreal, Ignacio
- Mustafi, Shkodran
- Ozil, Mesut
- Papastathopoulos, Sokratis
- Torreira, Lucas
- Xhaka, Granit
The problem, or at least part of the problem is that Cohen Bramall is listed as foreign. But here is what Wiki says of him:
“Cohen Bramall (born 2 April 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a left back for Premier League club Arsenal.” So, no question about where he did his training – Wiki say, as I have always understood, that the guy is English.
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Here is more on him…
“Bramall was born in Crewe, Cheshire. He began his career in non-League football in his local area, with Kidsgrove Athletic, Alsager Town, Nantwich Town, Market Drayton Town – with whom he won the 2015–16 Shropshire Premier Cup in his second spell at the club – and Newcastle Town. In May 2016, he moved to Northern Premier League Premier Division club Hednesford Town.”
Now the last time I looked, although Crewe seemed a bit of an odd place, full of railway lines and known for some deeply worrying allegations about child sex abuse in its football club, and a lack of proper investigation thereof, but it is in England.
Perhaps these are just mistakes – but if so a bit unfortunate on what is the official record of who can play and who can’t.
As always we have players who are not listed as they are under 21 on the qualifying date and clearly part of the first team squad: Matteo Guendouzi, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Konstantinos Mavropanos are the stand out names.
And we have players out on loan and thus not listed.
- David Ospina, Calum Chambers, Takuma Asano and Matt Macey.
Here are the total number of players in the main list for the top six clubs of last season showing the number of home growns in brackets.
- Arsenal 24 (8), Chelsea 25 (9), Liverpool 23 (7), Manchester City 21 (4), Manchester United 24 (10), Tottenham Nomads 24 (7).
The Manchester City list is interesting – the reason they have only 21 players is because of their shortage of home growns in the squad. If they wanted to add any more they would all have to be home grown. In a squad of 25 players only 18 can be foreign.
It is interesting that in the past a lot of fuss was made about all of Arsenal’s foreign players, but now that Man City are operating with a mostly foreign team, no one seems to be complaining. I am sure there is a good reason for this.
Here is the full list of Arsenal’s under 21s – some are scholars some are on contract.
Alebiousu, Ryan
Amaechi, Xavier Casmier
Ballard, Daniel George
Balogun, Folarin Jerry
Barden, Daniel
Bielik, Krystian
Bola, Tolaji
Burton, Robert
Clarke, Harrison Thomas
Cottrell, Ben
Coyle, Trae
Daley-Campbell, Vontae
Dennis, Matthew
Flaherty, Stanley James
Gilmour, Charlie Ian
Greenwood, Sam
Guendouzi, Matteo
Hein, Karl Jakob
John-Jules, Tyreece Romayo
Lopez Salguero, Joel
Maitland-Niles, Ainsley
Martin, Joshua
Matthews, Alfie
Mavropanos, Konstantinos
McEneff, Jordan John
McGuinness, Mark James
Medley, Zechariah Joshua Henry
Nelson, Reiss
Nketiah, Edward
Nwakali, Kelechi
Okonkwo, Arthur
Olayinka, Olujimi James Ayodele
Olowu, Joseph Olugbenga
Omole, Tobi
Osei-Tutu, Jordi
Pleguezuelo, Julio Jose
Saka, Bukayo
Sheaf, Ben
Smith Rowe, Emile
Smith, Matthew Gerrard
Smith, Tom
Spencer-Adams, Bayli Alexander
Swanson, Zak
Thompson, Dominic
Tormey, Nathan Alexander
Willock, Joseph George
Zelalem, Gedion
So, I think that is right, but if the official league is going to start making mistakes, what chance have I got?
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- How much does the League title cost, and what power do mere supporters have?