Sign up to FREE email alerts from Mirror - Arsenal FC Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Arsene Wenger has launched a withering attack on Greg Dyke’s plans for English football and claimed they will promote “mediocrity.”

Wenger is the first high profile manager to give his response to Football Association chairman Dyke’s blueprint to try to help improve youth development and produce more homegrown players.

Arsenal’s French boss believes setting artificial limits on players will actually succeed in lowering standards and he says the FA should concentrate on raising coaching standards.

Dyke wants to limit the number of non-EU imports, insist every Premier League club must have 12 English players in their first team squads and crack down on homegrown rules.

But Gunners boss Wenger, who became the first manager to field an all foreign 16 man squad in the Premier League, says he is prepared to fight the FA’s plans as they will be bad for football and stop fair competition.

(Image: Action)

In an interview with beIN Sports, he said: “I believe that we are in the world of competition. Competition means who of you or me is the best one. We have to accept that.

“That means as well that the rules of the game must be structured to favour the best. Or we are not in a competition anymore.

“So we can say one of two things - we protect the mediocre or we produce the best players.

“I personally would support hugely to pay super people who think about how we can produce players from five years old to 20 years old to be as good as they can be rather than protect them through wrong mediocre rules.

“I give you two examples. In Yugoslavia in the past they decided you had to play three players on the team sheet who were under 21. What happened? They became professional subs. It happened in France, too.

(Image: Getty)

“Then they decided you had to play three players under-21 from the start. You know what happened? They subbed all three after five minutes.

“If we want to sell the Premier League for a huge amount of money then we need to say: ‘buy this, this is the best in the world.’ You cannot go against the quality and what is at the heart of our job which is competition.

“The best must be the best. That’s why I will fight against it. I have very little power but I don’t think the idea is right.”

Wenger has also insisted German midfielder Mesut Ozil - who was given last weekend off with a cold - was not partying in Berlin and says he has done nothing wrong.

There were reports that Ozil was spotted in a Berlin nightclub while Wenger also said that he is hopeful of keeping Theo Walcott and insists contract negotiations HAVE begun despite the Gunners winger saying otherwise.

(Image: Jason Mitchell/Ips/REX)

Wenger added: “We start to negotiate with Theo to extend his contract. Personally I would like to keep him.

“Mesut was not partying. He was out for dinner with some friends. If he was out partying in Germany then you would have seen some pictures. If he was in a nightclub in Germany then you would have seen some pictures the next day. You know that is not possible.”