when looking at the difference between teams like ourselves and arsenal the biggest difference becomes blatantly obvious. it's the standard of foreign players. it's no coincidence that the best players that we have in our side are the home grown english players. that's why it doesn't fill me with any confidence when we're being linked with players such as cisse who's unproven. the main problem is that english players are generally more expensive.
with a load of eastern european countries about to join the EU e.g. bulgaria, romania, poland, it means that a lot of their players being available for cheap in the summer. it worries me that houllier would be more likely to look at these type of players rather than young british talent coming through. is buying british the answer?


) English is great but expensive as JBG says. In order to buy the best you have to pay over the odds. Upson is about the only "bargain" I can think of in recent times, Chelski paid quite a lot for there English buys. We need to bring players through the ranks like manu and sell them at inflated prices to mid-table prem teams and lower division sides if they aren't good enough. We can't complain, we have three good home grown players