Arsene Wenger has hit back at suggestions he is ruining English football by fielding so many foreign players.
Arsenal boss denies ruining English football
Arsene Wenger has hit back at suggestions he is ruining English football by fielding so many foreign players in his Arsenal side.
The debate over the amount of players from overseas plying their trade in the Premier League has resurfaced since England failed to qualify for Euro 2008.
It has been suggested that homegrown talent is being stifled, but Wenger does not believe it would be right to limit the number of foreigners in top-flight teams.
He feels English youngsters will benefit from competing with the best players in the world, and has told the doubters to be realistic.
"For me it doesn't make any difference where people come from," Wenger told
Sky Sports News.
"You cannot want the most popular league in the world and have everybody come from one country. It doesn't work like that. That would be miraculous.
Eyes open
"You can close your eyes and not want any competition or you can open your eyes and say 'we have the best players in the world here' let us produce players of that quality.
"In this situation we have a bunch of people who just want to shut their eyes and say let us come back within ourselves.
"But I feel England are going the right way to produce good young players.
"If you become the best players in the world there is no problem with foreign players."
Quota
And Wenger insists any attempt to impose a quota of home-grown players will only lead to the development of "professional subs".
The Gunners boss recalled: "I was at the centre of an experience where we had to play three players in the squad under 21.
"You know what these people became? Professional bench players. Every week they sat next to the manager.
"Not only did more French players not play, but they did not even play in the reserves or practice enough and in the end we cut the rule and we opened it up completely again because what happens is you produce professional subs."
Wenger maintained: "That will happen again, of course, if we go down the quota route.
"The manager will first choose the best players and after he will choose the second best. You are not at ease to do your job because you feel somewhere you do not even help the boy.
"I prefer to tell them 'listen my friend, you are not good enough. We are in a job that is down to quality and I do not want to give you a job of just sitting on the bench because somebody in an office has decided that you need to be in the squad'.
"It is ridiculous and it is unfair."
