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Foreign policy: Santi Cazorla's success at Arsenal proves why it's simply madness for clubs to buy BritishCompare his £12m fee to the £15m Liverpool paid for Welsh midfielder Joe Allen, the £35m the Reds shelled out for Andy Carroll or the £10m Matt Jarvis cost West Ham
Santi Cazorla has done a good job of highlighting why it is a false economy to buy British.
Cazorla is 27, at the peak of his powers, a part of the all-conquering Spanish squad, has won 48 caps and cost £12m flat.
Compare that to the £15m Liverpool paid for Welsh midfielder Joe Allen who had one good season in the Premier League with Swansea, gaining a reputation for a neat and tidy player.
Or, perhaps even more telling, the £10m that West Ham paid for Matt Jarvis, a one-cap wonder who got the England call, came on as a substitute against Ghana and has not played for his country since.
Then again, you have Arsenal's £10.9m fee for Lukas Podolski who has won 103 caps for Germany, scored 44 goals and is 27.
And the accusation is that English clubs do not give English players enough of a chance. The truth is that unless they develop themselves it would be madness to buy home grown talent.
Arsenal have a clutch of young English players with Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott and Carl Jenkinson.
Arsene Wenger bought Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain for big money from Southampton for £12m each when they were both teenagers.
Jenkinson came from Charlton for £1m and, as he progresses towards the England squad, that looks a snip.
If Walcott does leave Arsenal then there will be a queue of clubs round the block. Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City. If he goes to Liverpool in January then it will be a big fee. If he goes on a free next summer then he will command a huge contract.
Walcott is young, brilliantly talented - and English. His stock is therefore even higher.
But, increasingly, Premier League clubs are steering away from home grown players because they do not represent value for money.
Wenger is pleased to now be boasting a clutch of young English players but the reality is that most deals don't make sense.
Just look at Andy Carroll. The Geordie centre forward cost £35m, has now been loaned out to West Ham because Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers, regarded as an outstanding coach, deemed that Carroll did not fit into his philosophy.
Surely it has to be down to Rodgers to coach and work with Carroll to make him fit in. Instead, Liverpool are left with a £35m price tag which is impossible to justify.
And yet on the back of so many big deals like Carroll, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson, they paid £15m for Allen. He will be a good player but £15m is surely proof that it no longer makes sense to buy British.
Manchester City spent £15m on Jack Rodwell. And now he's lost his place in the England squad. They've surely bought him for no better reason than he's English.
While every England fan wants to see England succeed - just the same with Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland - they will want their club to come first.
So the choice is simple: pay more for an inferior British talent or less for a ready-made foreign star.
Cazorla may yet prove to be the best signing of the summer. He looks a top quality player, full of ideas, technique and vision. He drives games.
Arsenal were originally quoted £20m by Malaga, played a tough game of negotiating and then eventually got him for £12m flat. No add-ons, nothing.
This is a player who was nearly signed by Real Madrid, starred at Malaga as he helped get them in the Champions League and is an incredibly popular and valuable member of the Spain squad.
While we all want to see home grown talent succeed, no manager, chairman or chief executive in their right mind can surely justify some of the crazy price tags for British players.
Furthermore, the right player comes to England and embraces himself in the way of life, culture and learns the language.
Cazorla has hired Cesc Fabregas's old English teacher, lives in Hampstead - an upmarket part of north London - and enjoys the English way of life.
The same for Podolski. He was spotted getting a bus in Hamsptead the other day. A far cry from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink who, in response to a question about if he used public transport, said: "Yes, just the other day I got a black cab."
There is a little Arsenal enclave in Hampstead. Mertesacker is nearby, too. Back in the day, players used to live in mock Tudor mansions in suburbia. Now they come to play, live and enjoy.
It's unlikely to please Roy Hodgson. But with every English deal, more and more clubs will be questioning whether it really pays to buy British.
Has Bacary Sagna finally met his match?
For the past five years, Bacary Sagna has been the best right back in the Premier League.
There have been strong contenders. Micah Richards was a powerhouse for Manchester City as they won the Premier League title and it is incredible how England have overlooked him.
Gary Neville was undoubtedly the best English right back of his generation, grossly undervalued despite his incredible success for Manchester United during a glorious 19 year career at Old Trafford. But even Neville was winding down by then.
But since his arrival at the Emirates, Sagna has twice been named the best right back in the Premier League by his fellow pros and been a great example of a full back who can defend, get forward and be tenacious in equal measure and with equal effect.
Sagna, 29, has been an automatic choice - until now. The French international has suffered two leg breaks within a year.
And that has given Carl Jenkinson a chance to stake his claim - and stake his claim is exactly what he has done.
Sagna is on the comeback trail, having played for Arsenal's under-21s against Reading and is likely to have another game under his belt by the end of the international break.
But for the first time since his arrival, Sagna is facing genuine competition for his place which is something even he acknowledged this week.
Sagna said: "He has been really good, and has learned a lot. He is a bit more confident with the ball, and is very solid as a defender.
"He brings a lot to the team, and I am very happy for him because he is a hard worker, a very good guy and is going to be one of the best."
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