Whilst Ardiles is obviously correct, I am sure that all Saints fans are pleased that we have technically brilliant foriegn players in the Southampton squad such as Morgan not be mention othe players like Maya, Yoshida, Jos Hooiveld, Jose Fonte, Gaston Ramirez, etc. We are as guilty as any other team. I wonder how many Saints fans would be prepared to ditch our foreign contigent for their English counerparts and how soon we would slide back down to League One as a consequence.
I would recommend that anyone interested in this subject should read Jonanthan Wilson's excellent "Inverting the pyramid" which explains that England has actually been behind the curve with regard to tactics since the 1920's when Austria took a more scientific approach to football. The FA is changing but the power of Sky is dictating the English football improves as a product and this means employing techniccally gifted players from overseas. If you want to compete, it is becoming obvious that it is increasingly impossible to go this with British footballers. For all the negativity about England, I think the situation with Scotland is even worse. Having grown up watching football in yhe 70's / 80's, Scottish players formed the backbone of many of the better sides. This hasn't been the case since the formation of the Premier League.
Unfortunately, the only way to prevent this is to have a cap on foriegn player which, I believe, will probably contravene EU employment regulations regarding the free movement of labour. I also think that the idea of acadamies does promote English players. Unfortuantely, the global nature of the game now means that many of these acadamies will be full of foreign apprentices as is the case with Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal I believe.
It made headline news several years back when Chelsea fielded a team with no English players. Nowadays, no one would be surprised. Ardiles is right about the calibre of the current squad and when you see the likes of Leighton Baines lauded, you can appreciate the the standard of our national team is probably the worst it has been seen the early nineties when the likes of Carlton Palmer was guaranteed a match.
A very good point was made above about the lack of English players performing abroad. For a long while, our better players have not set a good example and even players like Ian Rush who you would have expected to have succeeded have struggled. I suppose the best examples have been Lineker, Hughes (Welsh), Keegan , Hoddle and Waddle. I don't think there are any players in the current squad half as good as these players. Technically our players have not been good enough and writers like Simon Kuper have commented that the social standing of the footballers may also have a bearing insofar that football is more of a working class sport than it is in elsewhere in Europe.
My final point is this. Having watched some of the Confederations games, they have largely been boring. I can't bring myself to watch Italy as they are so dull despite their undoubted skill. I think that the English prefer a more physical game and faster style of play which makes skill less of an issue. We often talk about a game being played in the spirit of a "cup tie." For me, there are two sides of the coin on this. However, it is interesting how foriegn player adapt to the style of play in the uK (interesting to hear the little Brazilian player to played for Boro in the 90's comment on this last week on TV) and how some can cope whereas others struggle.
England does produce it's fair share of players in this category.
