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Morecambe's resident lothario lets himself down

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Morecambe's David Artell on beer goggles, Arsenal's bunch of youngsters and refusing to moan about training on Christmas Day

Christmas is never a time when footballers can have a good time because of the amount of games in such a short period of time. We have six games in eighteen days over the festive period so there will be no danger of putting any weight on. The gaffer has already told us that we will be training on Christmas Day which isn't ideal but if I was a manager I would do the same.

Its not because I wouldn't trust my players not to have too good a time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, it's just that it's the correct way to prepare. For me it's irrelevant what day it is; it's simply the day before an important game. I'm not exactly looking forward to spending Christmas Day in my car for three hours missing my children opening their presents but I believe it's a small price to pay over the course of the year and as I said, it's the correct preparation. To put things into perspective I'm usually at home for 3.30pm and get most of the summer off so I'm not complaining.

The only time around Christmas where we get to have a good time is at our Christmas party which we had last Saturday. It all passed off quietly (unlike the Manchester United party) although there obviously wasn't as much attention even though we had the Teletubbies and an emu out with us. They say a drunk man speaks the truth but that wasn't the case as far as one of our players is concerned. The 'stunner' he told us he pulled (and spent a lot of money on) sent a picture to his phone and she turned out to look like she'd had a rather nasty accident with a bus! His lothario reputation has taken a battering. Another highlight of the night was when a bouncer of a nightclub came up to me to tell me that Captain America and a cow were inside the club looking for me.

Arsenal's 'youth team' were absolutely fantastic on Tuesday night against Blackburn in the Carling Cup. The maturity that some of the players Arsenal have is just frightening. It must give Arsene Wenger so much pleasure to see them beat a Premiership team pushing for Europe with only ten men playing the kind of football most of the other teams in the Premiership can only dream about.

Having been to Arsenal's training ground, the set-up is second to none which justifies the money ploughed into their youth policy. Our youth set-up is far removed from Arsenal's but that's not to say we don't produce professional footballers. Morecambe have been successful in producing first team players even though the better schoolchildren could be enticed away to the so called bigger clubs in the area. This may have its advantages for the children like playing with better players day in day out, but there's also disadvantages too as you're less likely to get an opportunity to get into the first team.

The youth system is the lifeblood of smaller clubs like Morecambe and to produce one first team player who earns the club money justifies the relatively small amounts of money it invests into it. I'm sure that the scouting network for children that Morecambe have in place is not as vast as Arsenal has for example, but like I said it all costs a lot of money to implement.

There is a repeat of last year's semi-final with Arsenal being drawn against Spurs. I can only see a similar result (and the same two teams in the final) but the only difference this year I believe will be the eventual winners. I think Arsenal will go one step further and beat Chelsea in the final and at [3.8] would definitely back them at that price.

David Artell plays for Morecambe FC:

http://www.morecambefc.com/