Now 38 English options that have made an appearance in the the Champions League this season - Goalkeepers 0 Defenders 13 - Rico Lewis, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fikayo Tomori, Ezri Konsa, Ben White, Joe Gomez, Eric Dier, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Ben Godfrey, Tyrone Mings, Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, Jarrell Quansah. Midfielders 14 - Bobby Clark, Jude Bellingham, Jacob Ramsey, Angel Gomes, Phil Foden, Conor Gallagher, Declan Rice, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Ross Barkley, James McAtee, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Curtis Jones, Nico O’Reilly, Ethan Nwaneri. Attackers 11 - Jamie Gittens, Samuel Iling-Junior, Morgan Rogers, Bukayo Saka, Tammy Abraham, Ollie Watkins, Jack Grealish, Raheem Sterling, Harry Kane, Jaden Philogene, Marcus Edwards.
No English starters for Wolves today. Three on the bench (Sam Johnstone, Craig Dawson and Tommy Doyle.j
Just doing a random check on English player starters for Premier League games and the number was 29.09%. Again though, other than Newcastle, most of our bigger contributors were from the lower end of the league.
This is compounded by the recent international eligibility rules. In the Forest - Ipswich game there were 4 English players no longer eligible for the country of their birth and in the Spurs - Fulham gamme there were 5.
I guess you could say there were four others from home Nation Countries even though it’s still classed as foreign when it comes to an England prospective but still pretty depressing for a team in the Championship.
Does it really matter though? We've got to be careful not to worry too much about players eligible for England who have gone elsewhere because they aren't good enough. 5-6 of their starters are England eligible, but are bottom end Championship players - we can't just keep everyone in the system in the hope they make it when they have other opportunities and parental ties - these players are coming through English (and Welsh) academies in the main which is all we can worry about
Stoke are also starting Ashley Phillips every game and are bringing through Sol Sidibe, so we shouldn't be too harsh on them.
Now 39 English options that have made an appearance in the the Champions League this season - Goalkeepers 0 Defenders 13 - Rico Lewis, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fikayo Tomori, Ezri Konsa, Ben White, Joe Gomez, Eric Dier, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Ben Godfrey, Tyrone Mings, Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, Jarrell Quansah. Midfielders 15 - Bobby Clark, Jude Bellingham, Jacob Ramsey, Angel Gomes, Phil Foden, Conor Gallagher, Declan Rice, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Ross Barkley, James McAtee, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Curtis Jones, Nico O’Reilly, Ethan Nwaneri, Harvey Elliott. Attackers 11 - Jamie Gittens, Samuel Iling-Junior, Morgan Rogers, Bukayo Saka, Tammy Abraham, Ollie Watkins, Jack Grealish, Raheem Sterling, Harry Kane, Jaden Philogene, Marcus Edwards.
The case of Youssoufa Moukouko takes another baffling turn, with it emerging that his father wasn't actually his father at all and instead some kind of agent who "adopted" him and forged his birth certificate. It seems actually Moukouko is born in 2000 making him a pretty unremarkable 24 year old forward: https://www.footboom1.com/en/news/f...oukoko-alleged-father-admits-to-age-deception There were always a lot of doubts and a lot of suspicions about Moukouko though they did a good job of shutting it down at the time. It will surely only encourage more of these kind of cases given the success to those involved. His "parents" made a lot of money out of it and Moukouko himself has had a career he would never have had otherwise. Pretty remarkable he even went to and played in a world cup for Germany on the basis of being a wonderkid. It will be interesting to see if he remains in the Germany under 21 side. He's actually eligible for the next two under 21 tournaments, so he could still be with the under 21 side in 2027.
The face he went to Nice in the first place suggests it was probably already something of an open secret, or there were extremely significant doubts among better clubs. Even the fee wasn't really high for a 19 year old wonderkid, though probably far more than they'd get now. I also see I accidentally posted this in the english opportunity thread, should be in the general football thread.
Under German Law he is probably now liable to prosecuted for Age Fraud himself and politically I’m not sure the DFB will touch him again even if they clearly must have been very aware of all the suspicions.
Chelsea are prepared to allow English midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, 26, to leave the club on loan in January. (Mirror) Leicester City are planning to bring Dewsbury-Hall back to the club, having sold him to Chelsea in the summer. (Football Insider)
Enzo Maresca refused to rule out 26-year-old English midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who has been linked with a return to Leicester City, leaving Chelsea in January. (90 Min)
An Interesting article about Man United’s academy . https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ester-united-academy-ineos-ratcliffe-30603031
We've been very unfortunate that two of the best academies in the country have been highjacked by clownish ownership groups that have deemed it necessary to make needless and likely damaging changes to the structure of the institutions. Personally I find it hard to imagine the academies of both Chelsea and United won't be damaged, possibly United's even more so since that ghoul Ratcliffe has cut its funding quite significantly, amongst other things. Have to hope the damage is limited I suppose, but this is yet another pitfall of the Premier League and the what it represents, and the types of people it attracts.