And from Football365.com A column by John Nicholson Full article -> link Is there anything wrong with wanting a team of mostly British players complimented with one or two top-class overseas players? Is that such a bad thing? Wasn't that actually how it was supposed to work? Are you really telling me we can't find a lad in the north east who can play just 1% better than Rochemback? A drunk monkey could play better. The irony is because of a good youth policy we have the chance to do something shocking. We could have 75% of our first team as home-grown talent. Top it up with a few judicious buys and we'd all be much happier. Is it really so shocking to think that might be the answer? Surely, that is the future and all this buying in a striker from Machu Pichu will be seen for the foolish delusion it is. Would it be so shocking to try? I'd rather be relegated with that team than stay up and have to look at Viduk'as big square head and JFH's ridiculous big sticky-out granite horse's arse every week. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Maybe. Or maybe it's the most modern of thinking. But Middlesbrough should be a warning, an illustration of what can happen if your club is one of the many unfashionable, out-of-the-way clubs who are trying to pretend to be a big boy.
Why does it matter where a player comes from? Surely it's what he does on the pitch that counts, or maybe I'm just being naive. This issue is just an excuse for latent racism to come to the surface. Just because a team's in England doesn't mean they should have to play English players. I'm interested in seeing players from around the world, not just English long-ball merchants. Where do you draw the line anyway? Should a team have players from the same country, same county, or town? As a Bolton fan I consider a Londoner as foreign as a Frenchmen or a German, so why should a Londoner get priority? Maybe English teams would have more English players if they weren't so outrageously expensive. It seems that being English means a player's price goes up by ten million pounds, even if they're rubbish. There's talk of some 16 year old nobody in the Championship selling for 15 million. I'd rather go the other way and get rid of all English players. For the price of SWP, Rooney or Michael Owen you could get Ronaldino or Riquelme.