Listen To Wenger: Arsenal Boss Is Correct In His Opinion On Youth Football

No one quite knows what to expect from a young player. Some have been billed as one of the hottest prospects on the planet but turn out to be no better than someone that just about scrapes into the squad each season. Every so often a young player will come through and completely set the world alight with whatever they’re experts in. It’s odd to look at a player and you can instantly decide what their future will hold as all sorts of things can change.

For example, a serious injury or a change of management with the new manager not interested in bringing youth through. There’s plenty of things but it’s fair to say that there is a lot of interest surrounding youth football as the England hierarchy want to produce more talented players to help the future of the national team.

However, Arsene Wenger is against the idea of creating a ‘B’ team to go into a new league just for Premier League and Championship reserve sides. The idea behind creating a ‘B’ league is that more competition will provide the young players with a better idea of what is to come when they begin their careers above the reserves. SkySports have reported.

Wenger feels that the more competition isn’t what the players need, they need more training away from the games to really develop their games as that’s where they’ll learn the best. I think Wenger is completely right in what he said.

When you look at the younger players these days, there are obvious flaws in their game. They’re lazy, they don’t have a weaker foot, they’re not strong enough or they don’t make decisions quickly enough. If you compare them to previous generations, it’s visible that they do lack training. Some are exceptions, but on the whole, I think players in previous generations were better all-round rather than having exceptional strengths.

Take Dennis Bergkamp for example, when you watched him play it was clear that he put in the hours on the training ground. His control, vision and finishing was something that can’t be gained through competition, it required the tutelage and intellect of his coach to give him those abilities.