Want to know why the likes of Arsenal don't buy English players? Because they're vastly overpriced

By Darren Lewis

Published 15:55 27/07/10

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It's been a slow old start to the week.

Lots of speculation about players moving clubs but nothing actually happening yet.

The season just over three weeks away but seeming more like a lifetime.

We've pretty much done the World Cup to death, we've given Fabio Capello a kicking for his useless leadership in South Africa. The players have already had it in the neck for not turning up.

So now its the turn of the old chestnuts to be whipped out: Why do Premier League bosses not like signing Englishmen?

And, of course, the likes of Arsene Wenger - an obvious, easy target - are getting a kicking.

Never mind the fact that the Frenchman has had his fingers burnt with the likes of Francis Jeffers, Rifchard Wright and Jermaine Pennant.

Never mind the fact that Wenger splashed out a small fortune on Theo Walcott a couple of years ago and was in for Joe Cole.

Never mind the fact that Wenger retains a healthy interest in the Ipswich starlet Connor Wickham.

And never mind the fact that Wenger is currently honing the talents of rising stars Kieran Gibbs, Mark Randall, Henri Lansbury - a player being coveted by a clutch of Championship and Premier League clubs ahead of next season - and Luke Freeman.

The truth is, Wenger is simply not being suckered into paying over the odds for English players when he can produce him own himself.

For example, West Ham want £15million for Scott Parker - a player they got for only £500,000 more than the £6.5million his previous club Newcastle stumped up for him from Chelsea.

Parker is a very good player but he is 29 years of age and did nothing last season to suggest he is worth double what the Hammers laid out for him three years ago.

Harry Redknapp is interested in Manchester City defender Micah Richards, who couldn't get into the team at Eastlands last season. City want £15million for him.

Look at James Milner. Clearly a very good player. But before Manchester City's interest in him became known you would not have put a price tag on him of more than, say £15million - despite the fact that he was the 2010 PFA Young Player of the Year.

Aston Villa want £30m and City, for all their bluster about not being held to ransom, are clearly going to pay it.

Thirty million pounds is the kind of money you pay for players that have won things. Who get you to World Cup semi-finals and beyond.

A player who will either guarantee you twenty-odd goals a season or provide the kind of versatility that made, say, Michael Essien such a formidable addition to the Chelsea squad.

But here in England we want it both ways. We defend the right of clubs to charge way over the odds for average players then we moan and criticise - insisting it is harming the national team - when clubs decide they can get value for money elsewhere.

When Wigan were promoted to the Premier League a few years back, their chairman Dave Whelan boldly declared he would not be going foreign and that he would be making British players his priority.

Take a look at their squad now. As reality bit, Whelan and his managers - first Steve Bruce then Roberto Martinez - accepted they had no choice but to look abroad for the value.

Indeed Bruce spent just £1million on the Honduras midfielder Wilson Palacios - a player for whom he would have had to pay a small fortune had he been English - and was able to sell him on to Spurs for £13million.

Bruce paid just under £4million for the striker Hugo Rodallega. Now he could easily command around double that.

Wigan have just laid out £6million for the Argentinian striker Mauro Boselli because his impressive record deems it worth doing rather than breaking the bank for an Englishman.

If the smaller clubs are doing it then it cannot possibly bode well for the future.

Because the truth is, until grasping clubs get real with their valuations of English players they are no position to accuse rival bosses of shrinking the pool of English talent.

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