Burnwinter it’s not that easy though. We need to balance homegrown rules. 2 challenges that we face. One, Brexit makes it harder to naturalise European players like Hato. Two, we don’t have a great Academy class between ages 18 and 21.
Nothing we can do about the first. E.g., even if we sign Hato, he can’t register til April. The second, we just have to wait for Skelly, Nwaneri, and Obi Martin who are actually some of the highest rated players in the England youth set up but all aged 16-17. The 18-21 group are generally not rated as highly as this group or the Nelson to Saka group.
What it means for Ramsdale, ESR, Nketiah, Nelson is that we can’t sell them all as we need to satisfy the 8 person homegrown rule (along with Saliba, Saka, Martinelli, Rice, Hilson). Arteta isn’t just hoarding. He’s living within rules and constraints.
