Is having the best league, which is full of international stars, hurting the English team? I would argue yes, it is. We see great players week in week out but when we point to these players they tend to be non-English. e.g Van Persie, Drogba, David Silva, Modric, Bale, Vidic, Nasri, Aguero What can be done make sure that young English talent is being given a chance and not just stored on the bench of the big clubs?
The truly great import players can help raise our standard . Its the average squad filling imports who hold back the young players . Seems pretty clear .
I'm not convinced. Like Sinner says, I don't think the influx of players who aren't necessarily better than what we already have helps, but is it a big enough issue to account for England not doing that well internationally? Throughout my lifetime (1977 til now), England have never truly been a great side. It times good, at times dark horses, but never as good as we would hope. Even when the league was chock full of Brits, with foreign players rare and European Cup winners aplenty, the England team underachieved. Also, we just went out of a tournament undefeated, on penalties, with a team decimated by injuries and call-up rejections, under a manager who's barely been there five minutes. Despite this, we still fielded regulars and key players for top Premiership clubs. That's not to say we don't have issues regardless, but I honestly think that we're a bit naive about developing players and we've had a history (which we seem to finally be leaving far behind) of thinking we know better than to follow what's happening abroad. I know I've watched youth coaches growing up, telling 8 year old kids to "cut out the fancy stuff and get it upfield" I think the biggest symbol of us being so naive is none other than Stuart Pearce. He's a pure motivator. All blood and thunder, with very little tactical acumen, yet we put him in charge of our youth team. We also tend to favour hard work too much. It's important, but we tend to pick people based on that over anything else. Even lately, you hear Ian Dark go all gooey if Andy Carroll or Wayne Rooney clear a ball out of our box. We champion Scott Parker and John Terry because they'll throw themselves in front of everything. I've probably said it before, but another symbol of this attitude is Matt La Tissier's single cap. A man who could have played for any team in his prime, a true genius who's greatest ambition was to play for his country, played less England games than Andy Sinton and Steve Stone. So basically, it's a development thing and realising the importance of technique and tactical awareness in reaching our goals. My hope is that we've already made in-roads in this respect and the next couple of generations will see things change.
Le Tiss played more than once for England and was frankly never that impressive at a time when we had the likes of Gazza and Sheringham. It was a little ironic he was so overlooked by Hoddle though.
I agree that 4 really world class players in the 11 would probably be beneficial to English players, I think it's right what someone has already said, it's the amount of average foreign talent in the league that hurts it. Too many players who are no better than the young kids on the bench. If teams took on 4 or 5 top world class players and tried to get the rest of the talent from England then it might not be a bad thing but there are too many average foreign players playing in the Prem in my opinion and they stop young English talent from getting their chance. Something else to blame the EU for
My issue is with the academy's getting stuffed with foriegn talent as that's clearly going to be detrimental to the domestic youth, I also doubt it helps the talent which is imported in either. I have no problems with grown-ups coming here to earn a crust if they're good enough.
I don't blame the EU. I blame the inflated price tags that English players carry. The Bosman ruling didn't help, but why should a manager fork out 7 million for an average Premiership youth product, when he can take a punt on a similar talent from abroad for a fraction of the cost? But then like I said above, I question the impact on the England team. Our youth teams are showing improvement, in spite of Pearce (though I want him gone - he does nothing to nurture these players for the international game). And like I also said before, the problem existed long before we were signing foreign players. Our club teams were very successful with homegrown talent, yet if anything, the late '70s and early '80s (the pinnacle of our club's European performances) were some of the worst times in the national team's history. It isn't like our national team has suddenly become markedly worse since the mid-nineties.
Well I blame the Bosman ruling. The cap should be 4 or 5 non English players and I would also include Scottish and Welsh in the non English players bracket, basically anyone who doesn't qualify to play for England. If that was the case, Premier League clubs would be forced to get the young talent and turn it in to the players they want, rather than just buying off the shelf from other countries. Shipping in foreign youth players at the age of 14 and 15 is just adding insult to injury.
