No wonder there isn't a decent England team: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jan/29/english-clubs-overseas-players-fifa-report
There is 0% surprise there. Virtually all of it is done by the top 7 clubs as well. If you look at the teams in the bottom half there are a lot of British players in the squads and starting XIs.
Just scanned that (but didn't see an answer to my questions): Which league spent the most on English players? Which league spent the most on domestic players? I reckon the premier league is the answer to both of those questions.
So, when we had hardly any foreign players in the 1970s we had a golden era of England success? The era when we failed to qualify for the 1972 Euros, the 1974 World Cup, the 1976 Euros and the 1978 World Cup. Yes it is all down to overseas players?
See my reply to the OP. We have been lacking a long time. Even when there were no overseas players all the top clubs were built around players who though not from overseas didn't qualify to play for England. From a lot of the main players in the great Spurs side of the early 1970s like Blanchflower and Mackay, Best, Law, Crerand at Man Utd, Bremner, Giles, Vray and others at Leeds and then of course Liverpool who have always been built around players who didn't qualify for England, culminating in a side where only 1 of their team qualified to play for England and he opted for Ireland. The sad fact is that for a long time we haven't produced enough good players. The reasons for that are many and worthy of a separate thread. As a matter of interest, without googling, which was the last all English team to win a major trophy? It was the FA Cup btw.
Are talking Britain or England here? As far as football goes Scotland, both parts of Ireland, and Wales are as foreign as Argentina, Spain or the Ivory Coast. Which is why a lot of the best players in our league going back to the 1950s and 1960s couldn't play for the country whose league they were playing in.
I would have said West Ham. I know Palace got to the final in 1990 with an all English team, but they lost to United.
British or Irish or whatever. Just a feeling that home countries managers would probably tend to prefer a core of domestic players when possible, rather than say AVB who'd just have anyone from anywhere. If you know what I mean.
You would have been right 1975. when they beat Fulham. Last team to field an all English team in the top flight was Aston Villa about 11 or 12 years ago when John Gregory, an Englishman was managing them. Shame they lost to Leicester 4-1. Coaching from junior levels upwards is one of the main causes of our falling behind other countries. There are more qualified coaches employed in schools in Spain, a country with a smaller population than ourselves, than we have in the whole country. They have over 10 times more qualified coaches, Germany even more. Take a bit of time out to read the link. It shows this discrepancy right up. http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/2011/02/why-england-loses-not-enough-qualified.html Then are facts like in Holland every little village has a pitch with lights, changing facilities often along with an all weather one (very noticeable on the bus from Europort to Amsterdam) at affordable prices. Over here both Conservative and Labour have overseen a selling off of playing fields and school pitches and the ones available are expensive and poorly maintained and hardly any have lights. Germany has similar which enables them to run leagues midweek allowing the top youngsters free to spend time with the clubs. I spent some time involved with junior football and saw the difference as we played teams from France, Spain, Germany and Holland. Saw more of the Dutch than any other and have to say although our system was more to the taste of the parent, who enjoyed seeing a good old full bloodied battle with their kids living out their frustrated dreams,in the long term the Dutch one was more beneficial to producing good, all round players. Their really young ones were playing on small sized pitches and their close control saw or lot chasing shadows. From 10 years old to 14 our teams physicality saw us with the upper hand. But at 15 and 16 they generally outplayed us and were technically superior and beating us. Not only the club I,was involved with but others as well. Why we have fallen behind and ended up with countries with smaller populations having far more coaches and producing more technically accomplished players is a bit deeper than having too many foreign players.
Managers are paid to do a job for the club and aren't worried about the national team as their job doesn't depend on their results. Would a British manager have not wanted a modern day Best, Law, Dalglish, Rush etc because they couldn't play for England? Personally I think countries should only be managed by someone from that country. Still, I am lucky, I was 16 in 1966 so was not only old enough to see us win the world cup but was able to get rat-arsed celebrating it and manage to get in in the small hours without waking my old man up. A pleasure I can't see being repeated for upcoming generations.
When was the last time we fielded an all English team? (by international association, not birthplace)
I didn't really mean that managers will favour players from their national team. More that I reckon home countries managers are more likely to build a team around home countries players. Spurs currently a shining example, AVB cast off pretty much anyone British, Sherwood has brought them all back to be key figures. It's not just England either, there's a distinct lack of top quality Scottish and Irish players too.
