Loads of the guys who lost to Luxembourg just won the U18 Pinatar Tournament with 3/3 vs much bigger and better teams. Weird things happen at youth level sometimes.
I watched all their games and I wouldn't really be that hyped about it. It was basically just the England teams of old. No passing ability, bad in possession, aimless long balls, defence couldn't pass it out. Won games based on individual moments of quality or forcing set pieces. What they did have was talented dribblers and their defensive structure was good so they were hard to break down but I didn't see much there to think we're in a good place development wise. Seemed like we've regressed in a lot of ways and given up trying to develop certain types of player. I don't want to be too down on it but its something we need to be very careful about. Youth development moves fast, if we're not innovating, focusing on improving our weak points, we're falling behind. Last thing we want is another 10 years like happened before the current generation when we had a massive paucity of talent. We need to be proactive in noticing declines. What are we doing to deal with our midfield production issues? Or that we still pass the ball out of defence worse than other top nations? Or the obsession with putting creatives into attacking positions? All things we need to address immediately. The countries that address those issues are the ones we're going to be playing catch up with again next generation.
Bar the 2000 group and maybe the 2003 group for spells haven’t we had these issues throughout? Losing so many coaches in a short space has created issues but feels like our golden youth era wasn’t that much different to now. Lack of depth in areas and creative deeper options always forced further forward in club football.
I've seen this come up recently elsewhere and it's just not very true at youth level. It's in the transition to senior level where it gets torn apart. Just from this international break's age-group teams, the deeper midfielders have included Sammy Braybrooke, Kobbie Mainoo, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Charlie Patino and Angel Gomes and I don't think anyone would seriously dispute there's a lack of creativity there. That plays out across the club game too, but then take Gomes; nobody in England would offer him that positional opportunity at senior level. The 2017 group that won everything had Gomes, McEachran, Oakley-Boothe, Dozzell, Edun, Onomah etc and the story was the same there. This isn't me pretending the England setup is perfect, far from it, but I do dispute the suggestion that English talent isn't of a high standard. It might not be coached to a high standard at international level and that's a valid topic to discuss, but the breadth and depth and versatility of player is unquestionable imo.
Ironically Mainoo is being used to shoehorn Dan Gore into an attacking position. Why? Because Dan Gore isn’t strong enough? Big enough? Never mind that he’s a excellent playmaker and progressor from deep, and a fish out of water as a 10 or inside forward.
I was just having a look back over some the past results of the U17’s just to see how previous year groups have done and to be honest, even players that are now doing pretty well with the U21’s seemed to have very mixed results and even teams featuring Harwood-Bellis, Palmer, Gelhardt, Sam Greenwood and Azeez got hammered 5-2 by the Netherlands amongst other losses. Point being, these players seemed to have developed pretty well so maybe it’s not panic stations just yet but we do seem to be lacking a good knowledge of names coming through the system to look out for like Sancho, Foden and Bellingham who we all knew about when they were 15.
They were exceptional talents from exceptional year groups, but I think there are still some "names" coming through. We've heard plenty about Nwaneri.
Apart from the 17s I think the other age group sides have won every game they’ve played in this break with victories over Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Italy and Germany along the way. Maybe the end isn’t quite nigh just yet.
95% of youth development happens at the clubs. The FA has a rather limited involvement directly. For a decline in actual talent to occur the clubs would be more to blame.
This age group england have kept mainly the same players since under 15s and results have not been the best, I watched Wolves outplay Chelsea U17s at Cobham about 5 weeks ago with Dibling and Muekha in the chelsea team….yet Chelsea have 6 players included in the latest squad…. Think they need to widen net with fresh players especially at this age.. in my opinion♂️
Of course the talent is declining, that’s inevitable with falling birth rates and a shrinking youth population to draw talent from. Have you noticed the only demographic still growing a lot is massively over represented in english youth teams.
The birth rate increased in years in the youth age groups are entering. Annual increases occurred from 2002 until a peak in 2012 then a decline every year started. It was lower than the ten years previously during the 1999/2000/2003 era - three years which have all produced many talented players so I don’t think there is a direct link.
There are natural fluctuations! Spain were producing a crazy number of players a generation ago. Their well is a lot drier now in relative terms (They still produce some fantastic players).
Spain seem to still be producing some very Spanish type of players but in some positions that in 2008-2012 era were stacked with world class players the current players are clearly not at that level.
The age group in their mid to late 30s, I.e. now retiring out of football, had about 700,000 more people than the age group now in their late teens, I.e. just entering professional football… source: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures...cs/age-groups/latest/downloads/age-groups.csv i calculated the difference by adding 11 years to the age groups because this data was 11 years ago, then combining the 5 to 7 and 8 to 9 columns (today’s 16 to 20 year olds) from the all ethnicities row, then subtracting the total from the 25 to 29 column (todays 36 to 40 year olds), and the difference is about 700,000. You need to increase the generation entering professional football now by nearly 25% to equal the population now in retirement age. Elite talents come along unpredictably but the general standard must decline with significant population decrease, assuming the population’s quality stays the same.
Didn't we just win the Under-19 Euros with this declining talent pool though? Given how the 18's a looking a lot better than last year and the 17's a lot worse in their new age groups maybe its just that Ryan Garry isn't a terribly effective manager?
I do think there's something in this and how it will play a part in the decline of European football and the rise of African football further into this century. If you look at modern day Germany they no longer have a population advantage over countries like the UK and France in the younger age groups which helps to explain why they no longer look so ominous.
Zak Lovelace with two assists for Rangers U19s vs Liverpool today. He’s making good progress there, a lot of their fans see him as the standout prospect.
Quite a few 2006 lads were involved in the EFL trophy on Tuesday. I assume that was their last club fixture but the FA will have to ascertain fitness. Somto Boniface & Michael Golding from Chelsea might be injured, perhaps Juni could confirm. According to Transfermarkt, Tommy Setford has missed the last couple of games for Ajax. Archie Gray has been out for a month with a toe injury. Difficult to find information on others. Not sure if it is linked but they're now arguably the dominant force at youth level in the female game.
Both Golding & Boniface played midweek for Chelsea's U17s so, unless they picked up something in that game, they should be fine.
UEFA U17 European Championship qualifiers next week. Jamal Jimoh, Travis Akomeah and Michael Golding part of travelling squad as is Jimmy-Jay Morgan.