re: Arsenal 2014/15 Season Long Thread

quote:

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since players of today are noticeably more creative playmakers than those of even 10 years ago

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Are there? I've watched a lot of MLS this season and I frankly do not see it. The standard of play is way higher but the players who I see operating in the no. 10 role the best are not Americans.

And I mean specifically a playmaker, a no.10, a player who plays between the lines. I'm entirely skeptical of the whole US developmental structure, but I'm even more skeptical that we will produce a player that could possibly break into the first team of one of the top clubs as a teenager. It's also fairly rare for other countries that produce a lot more talent than we do. I see no reason to think it will be a guarantee in the future. Or to say another way, I'm highly skeptical our the youth system in the U.S. to produce that sort of player.

And even if I'm guilty of hyperbole on Zelalem, or extreme skepticism of the US's talent making machine, Zelalem has rare vision for someone his age. The passes he was making as a 16 year old were on par with Fabregas at that age. We've been talking about him as soon as he came on board, he was the youngest player on the team that went on tour in Asia.

If we do get playmakers who play behind the forward line, they are much more likely to come from US kids in foreign youth academies.

I'm not pretending that what I say is intractable though. I've been wrong before and will be wrong again.