Talk veered this way briefly on the Leicester Match Day Thread and in light of this article on the BBC Website this evening I thought I'd create a thread to talk about it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32024808 It is about changing work permits for non-EU players and a slight overhaul of the HGP system effective from May 1st. "Under the proposals outlined by the FA on Monday: A player will have to have been registered with his club from the age of 15 - down from 18 - to qualify as 'home-grown'. The minimum number of home-grown players in a club's first-team squad of 25 will increase from eight to 12, phased over four years from 2016. At least two home-grown players must also be 'club-trained' players - defined as any player, irrespective of nationality, that has been registered for three years at their club from the age of 15. Only the best non-EU foreign players will be granted permission to play in England." I'm not sure if these ideas are yet to be voted on by the clubs or if they're ready to go, the article was a little unclear to me. To my mind the current problems with HGP rules are firstly that the status is transferrable between clubs - if Harry Kane was to sign for Man U then he would count for them, despite the fact that they have done nothing towards his development as a player. Secondly it is that players like Gylfi Sigurdsson count as HGPs despite the fact that he isn't going to be playing for England ever, which I thought was part of the point of the quota - to get more English talent in the PL. I'm not saying that all HGPs should be English (unless there was another category created for Academy graduates who weren't declared for England) because the reality in this world is that that isn't going to be 100% the case any more, but it would be nice to see the emphasis in the English League being on English talent. Clubs should be rewarded for nurturing their own talent of all nationalities but with English qualified (but not those players who qualify for England but have taken other footballing nationalities) players prioritised. How you'd create a rule to enforce that is beyond me right now! Of the bullet points above, 1 2 and 3 appear to go some way towards both increasing the emphasis on HGPs and also making clubs focus on their own academies rather than poaching players from other academies - this will of course still be possible under the new rules but to a lesser extent. I'd have liked to have seen a situation where a player only counts as home grown for the club who he is permanently contracted to when he makes his PL debut, but that seems a long way off and it would be a big step right now to be fair. Bullet point 4 is a little ambiguous but then again the current rules are hardly perfect - Paulinho got in no problem whereas Willian needed special dispensation and who has been better value in the league so far...its a difficult rule to formulate to be fair, both legally and practically I believe. FFP itself is a whole other kettle of fish that has been mentioned a few times but that probably needs a whole thread on its own.
Premier League clubs in general do a fine job of throwing a spanner into the works of the idea that HG = English, as plenty of clubs have Irish, Welsh or Scottish kids coming through their academies, for example Stephen Carr qualifies under the modified HG criteria as he was at Spurs when he was 15, but those 44 Ireland caps say that he isn't English (and the exact same thing can be said for Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher, for a couple of higher profile examples) There's a slightly different issue where players qualify as HG in their league and have youth caps for one country, but change nationalities at a later date. Obvious cases include Sebastien Bassong and Adel Taarabt qualifying as HG in Ligue 1 plus being France youth internationals at U21 and U18 level respectively, yet they are full internationals for Cameroon and Morocco - just as Victor Moses and Shola Ameobi qualify as HG in the Premier League, yet are full Nigeria internationals.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32024808 ... We can all thank Sherwood once England win the world cup with Harry kane, I always knew Sherwood would become an important figure in the international game.
Saves me writing an article I was going to call "On yer Dyke !!!" . Saw a snip of an interview with Greg Dyke, making a claim that if Timmy was not Spurs manager, that Kane would be on loan at Millwall or somewhere. Ignorance aside that Kane WAS on loan to Millwall, I want to get this clear. Walker, Naughton, Livermore, Rose, Caulker, Townsend, Mason et al. They are sent on loan by the Academy to DEVELOP, in an environment AWAY from the fickle supporter glare directed at the senior squad. Flaws can be ironed out, league experience acquired. So that when they are called into the senior fold, they are PL READY. It is about time that EVERYONE in the Academy machinery over the past 4 or so years, gets the credit they deserve for the way things are now going in the senior squad.
Kane owes more to Pochettino for first team game time than Sherwood, surely. He wasn't getting much first team time last year if memory serves. If we're talking about Bentaleb, then different matter.
I'm all for increasing HG quota in squads so I'm happy this is set to be enforced. There aren't many better things to see in football than one of your team's own lads going on to make it at your club and then onto the international stage. Of our 5 lads in the England squad, 4 of them came through the academy (Rose, Mason, Townsend, Kane) of which 3 came through as kids and were nurtured by us all the way through (Rose joined from Leeds at 16 for £1m), I get a great sense of pride seeing that. You only have to look at other countries to realise that investing time and money in your own is benefitting the national side, and ultimately everyone in the country wants to be proud of their national team when the qualifying and tournaments come around. Spain dominated the world for nearly a decade, the Germans are now looking likely to dominate the foreseeable future while The Netherlands also take pride in producing their own and always have a competitive national team. Our squad has regressed so much in recent years it's a shambles, from the likes of Terry, Ferdinand, Campbell, King, Carragher, Neville, Cole, Scholes, Lampard, Gerrard, Beckham, Owen and in-form Rooney with potential to Jagielka, Cahill, Johnson, Baines, Cleverly, Wilshere, Barry, Parker, Welbeck and inconsistent Rooney who I think has failed to reach his full potential. Now the second bunch of players are all good don't get me wrong but they're not in the league of the ones listed prior. We haven't replaced top talent with top talent, we've replaced it with good or even average players, where as other countries have continued to produce star quality; When Figo, van Nistlerooy, Raul, Zidane, Ballack, Batistuta and others called it a day for the national side, the likes of Cristiano, Robben, van Persie, Villa, Xavi, Iniesta, Pogba, Ribery, Schweinsteiger, Ozil, Khedira, Messi, Aguero and co all stepped up and replaced those world class players. We need to start following suit soon otherwise we'll be left even further behind. The likes of Kane, Barkley, Sterling, Shaw, Clyne (and maybe one or two others I've forgotten) have shown great potential and the likes of Sturridge, Hart and Henderson should be nearing their best years and so it's down to Woy/ Southgate/ O'Driscoll etc along with the coaches and managers of both country and clubs to ensure these lads, amongst others are nurtured and made to reach their potential.
Harry Kane made 6 league starts last season. He also came on 4 times for a total of about half an hour, though one of those was pre-Sherwood. He made 9 cup appearances, 5 of which were under Villas-Boas.
Can you imagine the prospect of Chelsea and City's teams being filled with English players? The owners wouldn't stand for it. They demand the CL trophy - and they wouldn't have a prayer. At least Arsenal's players are French. All part of the Common Market
Dyke's remarkably UKIPish rant also overlooked one simple fact: Eric Dier is English, yet he isn't HG - but he is in the Portuguese league. Does Dyke take umbrage with the idea that Dier was preventing the development of a Portuguese youngster for Sporting, and if he doesn't can he explain why? And since he has time, can he also explain why The FA are considering a bid to host the 2026 World Cup? The FA pissed off plenty of powerful associations in Europe by reneging on their deal with the DFB - an agreement with the Germans that, in exchange for their standing aside to give England a free run to host Euro '96, England would not stand as rivals to a German bid to host the World Cup...only to stand against them with a bid to host the 2006 WC - as well as the sense of entitlement that comes from World Cup bids boiling down to nothing more than "We invented football: gimme, gimme, gimme."
There is more chance of us finding the next Danny Rose then there is of finding the next Harry Kane. While I agree with sherwoods words that a player just needs a chance (sometimes), if that player is that talented, he will force the manager to give him a chance or move elsewhere and show his ability. Yes, having average domestic players instead of average foreign players in this league may be a minor plus point as I would rather we had average domestic players then average foriegn players, but we may simply just see players of the ability as Steve Sidlwell instead of Nacer Chadli. Also, our players never move abroad - Rooney should have moved to a foreign league, as should have Gerrard and a number of other players. Our managers aren't up to the standard of previous England managers who have experience of the foreign game such as Venables, Hoddle and while Robson managed abroad after England we lack that type of motivator. We're behind other countries in many aspects that this new plan sounds like a desperate move, in hope that there are a bunch of talented English players that just need a chance. We can look forward to seeing the next Steve Sidwell.
The question about why English players never move abroad is a very simple one to answer: with the exception of a select few clubs anywhere in the world, those players would need to take a pay cut compared to what they make in the Premier League. It's far more appealing for an SPL player to move to the continent, like Paul Lambert to Borussia Dortmund or John Collins to Monaco, since not only would they have had the chance to improve themselves in a new environment but they wouldn't have taken a hit in the pocket - on the other hand, since the Serie A bubble economy burst a decade ago that means the only clubs players can move to without taking a pay cut are Barca, Factitious, PSG or Monaco, or they can run out the clock while getting paid several times more than their teammates in MLS or Qatar. It does say a lot that players from anywhere else in the world seem willing to take a pay cut to move abroad, but English players don't.
And yer average PL player just is not technically good enough to oust his counterpart in La Liga etc. From John Charles to Greavsie to Lineker to Bale, these are all players who were at the top of their game in England. Could you see the likes of Get real Madrid taking a chance on the likes of a Laurie Cunningham now ??
I was with you up until this part. Who are these players from around the world willingly taking pay cuts? I'm unfamiliar with them.
A few off the top of my head... Carlos Tevez: Man City to Juventus (£180k to £90k per week) Demba Ba: Chelsea to Besiktas (£90k to £44k a week) Ashley Cole: Chelsea to Roma (£150k to £58k per week) Shinji Kagawa: Man Utd to Dortmund (£80k to £57k per week) Roman Pavlyuchenko: Spurs to Lokomotiv Moscow (£48k to £33k per week) Vedran Corluka: Spurs to Lokomotiv Moscow (£45k to £33k per week)
Corrected your error All these changes just mean that the big money clubs will spend more money and effort tapping up the best talents in the country and bringing them in cheaply under the current system that short changes clubs in the lower leagues. All we'll end up with is City, Chelsea, United and others flooding their academies with under 21 players to play the odds knowing that at least one or two will come good. If we don't address the flaws in the system like the pitiful funding for academies at clubs that can't afford it on their own and don't address the coaching problems that are leading to a situation where a handful of clubs are actually producing quality players then we're just going to carry on seeing a lack of quality at international level. This is just more USB wristbands and pledge of allegiance to English football nonsense from the FA.
Tevez had one year left on his contract and was docked months of pay for his dispute with City. Demba Ba hasn't taken a pay cut, as various clubs found out when they looked at signing him in January. Ashley Cole's contract ran out. Anything he's being paid is an increase. I've not seen anything vaguely reliable about Kagawa taking a wage cut. Pavlyuchenko had a year left on his contract and pays far, far less tax in Russia, meaning that he got an overall wage increase. The same applies to Corluka. Those aren't players leaving and willingly taking wage cuts. They're players moving to either get paid more or get longer contracts, often both. None of them were domestic players moving to a foreign league either, barring the one English player, which you claimed wasn't happening. Kagawa moved from Japan to Germany to England to make more money, for a start. Tevez did it even more times (Argentina, Brazil, England, Italy).
This is already happening - Chelsea have stuffed their academy with U21 players from Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Chile, Burkina Faso, Columbia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Holland and Belgium over the past few years, all of whom will qualify as HG players under the current rules, while City's has plenty from Holland, Argentina, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, France, Austria and Norway. It's one thing for clubs to bring in a couple of overseas U21 players to see if they make the grade, like we did with Bentaleb and Veljkovic (plus ones who didn't, such as Coulibaly, Gomelt and Ceballos), but there's something seriously wrong when clubs are signing a whole youth team in the hope that a couple of them will step up.
Chelsea are just a factory, no one makes it or even gets a look in if they feel the can buy a better player for £30mill.
Being out of contract doesn't mean a player's wages decrease: Tevez and Lampard didn't take a pay cut when joining City - but that's not just a City/Chelsea thing, because Gallas and Friedel didn't take pay cuts when joining us (nor did Saha or Nelsen, who were essentially free transfers) You seem to have missed the point I was making: there are plenty of non-British player who have taken wage cuts to leave the Premier League, such as every example I cited, but when it comes to British players the options seem to be down to Ashley Cole and (I presume) John Bostock.
Of course being out of contract means that a player's wages decrease: He no longer has an employer and isn't getting paid by anyone. Those players couldn't have just carried on in that situation and received the same wage. Those players aren't examples of what you're claiming. Players don't tend to move to clubs that pay them less when they're in the middle of a contract. That's not specific to England or English players. Do many English players go abroad? No. It's generally not worth doing so, both because they'd be paid less and because it could hurt their international ambitions. The same is true of a number of other nations, to a slightly lesser extent. The Italian squad is full of players from Serie A, barring four exceptions. The homegrown rule probably hurts any chance of this happening, as individual players become more valuable in one league than every other.
