The Times didn't report it 'wrong', they just left out a vital piece of information that was available in September when the story first emerged. I asked Matt Hughes about it on Twitter without a reply, can only think it was intentional to drive the story along and lure people into thinking it was something bigger.
I think it's often just ignorance and not intentional. People fall into cliches because they're uninformed. It's why they'll say stuff like 'smaller clubs want to stop the top ones stockpiling players' as if the smaller ones aren't also stock piling players.
"The number of English players starting Premier League games has reached record lows over the past two weekends." https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46431989 Down to 53 English starters this weekend.
Ben Pearson crucial to PNE this season and Alex Neil described him as best #6 in the Championship. Interesting to see if he will get interest from a more ambitious club.
Seems like it is inevitable he will be in the Prem. January or the summer ? EXCLUSIVE: West Ham and Crystal Palace to battle for Blackburn’s £20m Bradley Dack | @WarrenHaughton https://t.co/nj0TfbgiJQ— The Sun Football ⚽ (@TheSunFootball) December 3, 2018
That’s very depressing and gone under 25% last weekend! The FA seriously need to put there foot down and not give into the Clubs and insist on some strict measures after Brexit before we go into freefall which is close if not already begun. However it doesn’t help when you have the ex Sports Minsiter Tracey Crouch saying that nothing needs to change as we have a successful National team that happens to have not won a major trophy since 66. I’m not saying we need a complete overhaul but we need to stop the trend before we lose any identity left in English football. I personally would like to introduce a certain quota of English qualified players only in the Premier League starting each game, at this rate I would even say just 3 English players per team starting is a bonus and that’s a sad indictment of where we are. We currently have the best Youth teams and players that I can ever remember but yet we are getting less and less English starters, something is clearly wrong.
Pretty much come to the reality that when you in the Prem the chance of introducing new talent is pretty rare. It is now dripping down into the Championship the last few years. That includes loans of players from the Prem to Champ with limited experience. It has also become accepted by the clubs fans. Anywhere down the middle for young English players from GKs, centre-backs , centre-mids & centre-forwards getting opportunities are like gold. I remember Southampton didn't play Luke Shaw much in their promotion season but he started more regularly in Prem. Will we see anything of the like again ? Just look at what newly promoted clubs are spending. They know to compete they need to buy ready made talent even if there are a few 'failures'. Saying all that the Championship is catch some very talented English players because of all the overseas talent so got to hope a few keep getting purchased every now and then or get promoted with their teams and remain important players. I mean English qualified players in Championship could be at at an all time low too I would imagine.
Didn't realise this until just now but the whole of the starting Leicester front 4 from Saturday was English. That's unusual
I’m optimistic about a good few weeks for English youth. Some European games with nothing to play for, plus the Carabao Cup and fixture pile up should see some of the 2000s getting significant game time.
No chance Mourinho will play either . I hear great things about Greenwood from United fans apparently his talent is comparable to Ravel Morrison .
Would have surprised me more if he didn't, given that they're already through. Incidentally, Felix Nmecha makes the bench too.
Had a good second half. Again, this LCM position forbid him to make his trademark turn, but still grew into the game. Robbed of two assists.
Oh fwiw, here’s the top 10 for the Golden Boy list: Final rankings of the 2018 Golden Boy award - first to tenth:🇳🇱 Matthijs de Ligt🏴 Trent Alexander-Arnold🇳🇱 Justin Kluivert🇮🇹 Patrick Cutrone🇧🇷 Vinícius Júnior🇫🇷 Houssem Aouar🇵🇹 Gedson Fernandes🇲🇦 Achraf Hakimi🏴 Phil Foden🇫🇷 Dayot UpamecanoFootball's future. pic.twitter.com/ZW6jieGfA5— SCOUTED (@scoutedftbl) December 17, 2018
Intresting to see Justin Klivert fly so high when Mason Mount is nowhere to be seen and Phil Foden making the list while Sancho got no votes. A lot of the voting in these things comes down to media visibility when the guys in question aren't playing in big games, yet.
Well Sancho left the U17 WC after the group stages, whilst Foden shone, I suspect that's the reason, if so it makes sense. I'm personally not convinced TAA is that great atm. Going forward he is great but defensively he's still suspect, I know he's older but Robertson down the other flank is currently a much better player.
Also it's nice to see the Dutch making a comeback. I have no idea how they qualified for the top 12 of the Nations League, their last two cycles were a disaster. They looked as if they were in free fall.
I don't disagree with your assessment of TAA but Robertson isn't a fair comparison. He's not just older; he's four and a half years older. TAA right now is at the age that Robertson was when Hull signed him from Dundee United.