The FA awards the coaching qualifications which club coaches are required to have to be allowed to coach, irrespective of their club. Some clubs employ managers and coaches with equivalent foreign qualifications, but is there much sign that they have significantly improved the technical abilities of English players? Arsenal are perhaps the only club where you could perhaps make a case for it. The generality of club academies continue to churn out depressingly English-style players. In criticising the FA for appointing Southgate, you might equally criticise our own club for not appointing an experienced European-qualified coach to head our academy. The fact that our youngsters won the Youth Cup is neither here nor there in this context. They are best at what English youngsters do -- but look at how our national under-19s and under-21s got on in their international competitions this year.
After Meulensteen got sacked extraordinarily from Anzhi, I thought, here we go, another chance to stick him in the U21's vacant post. The FA wouldn't know a fantastic candidate if he slapped them in the face. I honestly do not understand why he wasn't approached, especially when you look at how many English players he has helped develop into England Senior Internationals. How many have Southgate or Pearce developed?
Hoddle won't get another job in the England set up following his flirtation with hard-line Christianity and declaration that the disabled must have offended God.
bloody hell robbie, do you bang on about arsenal at any opportunity? the arsenal academy is stocked-full of overseas talent as well as overseas coaches. how will this ever help england develop better players? its about getting the mix right and arsenal haven't done that. are you seriously suggesting teams such as manchester city, crewe, everton, southampton, middlesbrough, west ham, chelsea, manchester united liverpool etc don't have terrific coaching setups at youth level? these are some of the most technically advanced academies on the planet and the coaching is of the highest quality. they've had vast sums of money pumped into them over the years. all clubs attempt to help themselves first and foremost - any success for england is a by-product of that - but some clubs have more success at it than others. we are someway adrift, despite our surprise cup win, but the bar has been raised now so we may see more developments but how refreshing to see a fully british team win something ahead of the extravagantly-financed likes of chelsea, arsenal etc
Well, what you refer to as "some of the most technically advanced academies on the planet" with "coaching of the highest quality" doesn't produce many technically gifted players on the evidence of how our national sides perform. I didn't say that Arsenal produced many home-grown players. What I said was that at least players come out of the Arsenal academy with a different idea of how football should be played.
maybe you should watch some more academy football robbie. trust me, its not like it used to be. certainly if you watch kids down the park its as bad as its ever been but inside the academies is not where it all goes pear shaped - its at reserve and first team level. some of the kids in the academies are far, far ahead of where the equivalent kids in this country were ten years ago, even five years ago. the next five years are going to be crucial and the fa have just stuck a 'tv pundit' in charge of overseeing much of it. it beggars belief.
Well, if that's so it is excellent news and I'm happy to take your word for it. If there is better technical quality coming through, let's see what Southgate can do with it. He is a thoughtful and intelligent guy, without too many set ideas and not above listening, far removed from Psycho Pearce. And as people have said, it could have been worse.
Hmm, not made my mind up about this appointment. On the one hand, he's better than Pearce, so that's a positive, and it's also not like the quality of the U16-21 manager of the national side will have that much of an impact on the players coming through. He probably spends much less than a month a year working with them. By having another manager likely to fail now, hopefully the next appointment will be better, and will come when the youngsters from the new grassroots set-up are coming through. However, it's still not progressive from the FA, and that's a concern, and it still isn't an appointment that will make the most out of the players' potential though. I agree with the comments about the academies though - that's where we need to develop the players to make a great side. I don't know how would be the best way to implement it, but there needs to be serious incentives (or laws) to encourage the top academies to favour local talent over that available from abroad. Until we do that the amazing resources our clubs have will not benefit the national side.
I like the thought and effort that goes into your posts, whether I agree with them or not, but must you put a damn at the end of EVERY one? Loses it's meaning a little...that's all
Just think of it as a kind of signature Fleet. I like your animated version. Best of all would be a thumbs up OK which morphed into two fingers ......... <o ........ Oops!
