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"Chelsea: We're not italian, Dutch at worst! British at best! Rant at Arsenal or Liverpool!"

I am getting bored with people saying "why aren't chelsea playing in Sirie A" and thinking themselves A) Original and B) Witty.

How many Italians have appeared in the chelsea Team this year........i believe the answer is ......drumroll please............. a whole mighty .......2. Zola and Cudicini (and not to forget our Italian manager).

This is hardly a strong italian influence. The dutch Influence on the team is noticably stronger:

Hasselbaink, Melchiot, Zenden and De goey (and the delightful Bogarde making the odd appearance and collecting cheques faster than the millenium dome) all appearing for the first team this season with Gudjohnsen and Gronkjaer both learning there trade in holland. Dutch and English arethe first languages of the Chelsea team. In fact our French influence is stronger than the italian influence With Gallas, Desailly and Petit both regular starters.

Then such people claim: your team was all italian in the late 1990's. Which actually translates to: we had Di Matteo, Zola and vialli admittedly 3 of our best players.....but hardly our whole team.

Once beaten down such people go, "well anyway your all foreigners" again truish but a changing fact. Terry, Cole,lampard, Morris and the ageing le saux shows we are actually making and effort to become british, whilst liverpools signings last season were all african and Bruno Cheyro:

Dudek
Riise
Hyppia
Traore
Biscan
Henchoz
Babbel
Berger
Smicer
Hamman
Cheyrou
Diao
Diouf
Baros

Just to name the regular starters at anfield, I believe bolton have fielded an all foreign team this year, and a similar analysis can be done with the arsenal team and several to liverpool, with an actual national identity of french coming through the team. At least chelsea are trying to change. 2 summers ago everyone was saying oh Chelsea are italian and arsenal are french, at leaset chelsea have tried to change something. We arrive at the summer and we see ooooooooooooooooh Pascal Cygan arrive...courtesy of his passport, then the transfer window comes and arsenal need a keeper. Lets guess the nationality, oh, i think he is french, oh look Guillame Warmuz. And the situation is getting worse. Of Keown and Seaman go into retirement. Leaving Cole and Campbell to speak English to each other. Jeffers, parlour (and wiltord) are touted as the summers realistic big departures to fund moves for new players, and who are the players linked to the club......Predominantly: Mexes, Frey and Trezuguet (with Terry chucked in as the token englishman which won't materialise). Oh and the managers french, in case you hadn't noticed. And their Best prospect for the future, Aliadere. Maybe they'll buy another token Brazilian to mix with the french. Chelsea's nationality concerns are actually improving under Rainieri who has tried to make an English backbone with the limited funding in comparison to the old days of chelsea.

People ought to be congratulating people like Rainieri who are actually trying to remedy this situation, and even more so the likes of Alex Ferguson who have always maintained a strong British contingent.

Bolton are wicked. All foreign, but still wicked. Especially Jay Jay Okocha. One of my favourite players in fact, even though he's crap on CM4.

...Carragher, Murphy, Gerrard, Owen, Heskey and Kirkland are all regular first team players at Liverpool...in my opinion, that's pretty good.

If you wanna have a go at anyone, have a go at Bolton...I don't think they deserve to stay up when they play 11 foreigners.

nonsense. Rhys Evans has made the U21s from the chelsea reserves, as has Stephen Bywater at west ham

Future England. James and Robinson are second and third string right now.

Hoult has shown himself to be rubbish, and Taylor only isn't an under-21 regular because he hasn't played that much. If he'd been loaned out and played in Div1 he'd be in there I bet.

don't make me laugh! third!

James, Robinson, Kirkland, Wright, are well before, then there are people like Hoult, Murray, Bywater are all held in much higher regard than Taylor just look at the u21s!

Robinson is still just waiting for that run of form to push him from 'could be good' to 'good'. James is a great keeper but again, very prone to stupid mistakes which you just can't ignore. Seaman has gotten over a little dip in form and is now making great saves in every other match. He's bee the best keeper in England for what, eight years? And still is.

Taylor has made a number of very good saves, and made maybe one mistake (positioning on the Giggs goal) and has all the attributes to go on and be great. Probably third behind Kirkland and Wright in the future England keeper stakes.

seaman was the best for the world cup. But now Robinson and i don't really want to say it....james are this country's best keepers. Seamn is getting less agile and while still performs to premiership standards I can't see him being the best Arsenal can offer after the summer. Taylor is not really considered an excellent prospect by most....just a competent stand in

El Blokey wrote:
---Ashley wrote:
---Arsenal are a much worse case.

We have two English keepers, one the best and one a promising talent.
-------------------

Oh? Who are they then?

The problem is... it's hard to find good british players nowadays you'd have to pay loads for the top ones.

afro: fell through left till the summer to renogotiate.

Ort:he might have become a legend on the other hand! sign in on MSN!