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Arsenal, fresh from their 2-2 draw at the Emirates vs Manchester United, travel to the Czech Republic to play Slavia Prague today. The last time these two met in London, Slavia were on the wrong end of a 7-0 beatdown, a Champions League record (tied) until Liverpool’s 8-0 thrashing of Besiktas yesterday. And apparently some of those Besiktas players WILL be walking alone soon.

Meanwhile ol’ inaudible SAF is at it again, plugging down the tired old road about too many foreigners in the premiership and that causing the decline in quality of the English national team. Of course Wenger and the arseblog hits it right on the head:

I always felt that sport rewards quality and does not hide behind artificial rules. If you put the level of the class down, it does not necessarily make the bad students better. It makes them worse. The real question is how can England take the opportunity to produce world-class players?

And that’s spot on, in my opinion. It’s too easy for people to say that the lack of England’s quality players is down to foreigners. There’s no question that some local players don’t get the chances they should but that is almost entirely to do with the inflated transfer market for English players. Simple economics dictates that a manager who can buy a Frenchman or a Spaniard or a German for 1/4 of the price of an English player of the same quality is going to shop abroad.
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FIFA’s ideas about limiting the number of foreign players are not designed to improve the game. Not one bit. As I’ve always said they’re designed to lower the quality of the club game so the decline in quality of international football becomes less obvious. Septic Bladder won’t be happy with the EU’s comments that such a rule is unenforceable and would be a restriction of free movement of workers within the community. What did he expect though? Still, the charade will go on. The next time England fail to qualify for a tournament or get knocked out in the 1/4 finals the bleating about foreigners will start again and the real issues will be ignored again and again.

Perhaps SAF and the others who are upset at the quality of English football would do well to look at the quality of their current head coach. Instead of looking at some of the players coming off injuries or otherwise playing in England like Lampard, Wright Phillips and Hargraves, he decided to fly to LA to check out David Beckham practicing with the Galaxy and playing in a charity game against Hollywood United – a team made up of, among other wannabe athletes, Drew Carey and a guy from Def Leppard. Allegedly:

Since LA Galaxy coach Frank Yallop had just quit rather than continue with the Beckham circus, we might presume the real cause being helped here is McClaren’s job appeal. I hope the FA made him pay for his ticket.

To say the whole thing is Mickey Mouse would be an insult to cartoon characters everywhere.

As the boys on Fox Football Fone-In mention – if Russia manage to beat Israel next Saturday and knock England out of Euro 2008, England will be the last place Stevie will want to be. Even worse if Russia draws and England drop the ball against Croatia.

Finally Barcelona prepare for a rematch against Rangers at the Camp Nou. Despite the abundance of talent in Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi, Rangers were able to hold them at Ibrox to a draw, with American Damarcus Beasly even warning beforehand, “We Wont Stand Back To Admire.” And they didn’t, but this is a whole different ballgame. Rangers actually have a decent chance of making the Knockout round!

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