Value for money?

Sky sports news are reporting that Lehman, Ljundberg and Baptista are back in the squad for tomorows game. With Rosicky still out it will be interesting to see which of the midfield players takes his place, Flamini did a good job last week filing in but despite the goal I think it's obvious he is down the pecking order behind both Freddy and Baptista.

I don't expect Baptista to start as before his injury it seemed as if Wenger was easing him in to the squad, but I do think we will see him on the pitch at some point, either to boost the midfield if things are not going well or as a replacement to give somebody a rest after the mid week internationals. It's also good to see that nobody came back from international duty injured, however Wenger still had something to say to the French manager as both Henry and Gallas played the full 90 minutes.

On the subject of internationals it was interesting to see a report in the Independent about how many players were away from each club this week. With the odd exception the list closely resembled the Premiership table with Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal in the top places with 13,12 and 11 respectively, at the bottom of the list were Reading, Sheffield and West Ham.

That would suggest to me (if it wasn't already obvious) that the more internationals you have the better you will do. However none of the 11 players from Arsenal played in the England side, with the departure of both Campbell and Cole in the summer we now don't have any obvious first team England players.

Personally I couldn't give a monkeys but it did make me think, one of the reason Wenger doesn't buy English players is the cost, so I though what would the comparision between the 2 sides be?

I used the two starting line ups from their last games which were.

Arsenal : Almunia, Eboue, Toure, Clichy, Gallas, Faberagas, Flamini, Gilberto, Hleb, Henry and Van Persie.

England : Robinson, Richards, Ferdinand, Terry, Cole, Gerrard, Carrick, Lampard, J Cole, Rooney, Johnson.

So what's the totals?

Arsenal : 31.5 Million
England : 100 Million

Given the quality of football, I know which was better value for money. It gets even worse when you compare player for player, 150,000 for Toure or 31m for Ferdinand, 200,000 for Faberagas or Lampard for 11m and so it goes on. Also worth pointing out that many of the England players are home grow, Gerrard and Terry for example, so they are not included in the total.