I completely agree with you Jonny but it must be hard when making that choice, especially when the team you support comes and tries to snatch you up. Also i suppose we want our players playing in the top competitions, so we want them in the Champions League not just getting a run around in the league cup.
I did a lot of reading into football in our country yesterday and was left speechless by what the term "home grown" means. When the FA talks about having a rule that you must have a certain number of "home grown" players in your, we tend to think that's a good thing and it is but "home grown" is a term used to make us look like dicks.
Home Grown = * A Home Grown player is defined as one who, irrespective of his nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21). Players under 21 are eligible over and above the limit of 25 players per squad.
So basically a team could have 5 home grown players and not one of them could actually play for a country in the UK! Another issue is they say they have to at least have 5 "home grown" players in their squad, well from what i've seen from the squads this year, most teams are taking that as if they're only allowed 5. Case in point is the Arsenal squad i posted above, 5 "home grown" players and only 3 of them can play for a country in the UK. The team i've seen with the most "home grown" players is Cardiff (i haven't look through all the squads as bbc took ages to put them out), they have 15 "home grown" players in their squad and they're actually people who could play for a country in the UK.
Anger face isn't quite over yet but i'll stop there for now....i'm sure i'll rant some more in a bit. Also England tonight and Lambert gets a start which is good to see! Please play as a team guys!