I just had one of those random flashbacks, to when I was a kid, watching the 1996 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Man U. Before the game, one of the pundits said that it was almost a case of "us against them", because United had so many foreign players, compared to Liverpool. United's line-up that day? Schmeichel (Denmark) Irwin (Ireland) Pallister (England) May (England) P Neville (England) Beckham (England) Keane (Ireland) Butt (England) Giggs (Wales) Cantona (France) Cole (England) With substitutes Neville, Scholes, and Sharpe, all English. Just 15 years later, and can you imagine any team with 6 English players in the starting line-up, and only two from outside the UK and Ireland in the whole matchday squad, being regarded as excessively foreign?!
West Brom v Blackburn last Sunday saw 22 different nationalitoes take the field at the start of play! Make of that what you will but clearly English football is that in name only now.