The chairman of Peterborough has had a big rant against Premier League clubs, effectively saying he thinks it's shocking that 80-90% of the money given to English clubs leaves the country and goes to foreign leagues. He questioned why big money signings like Firmino for Liverpool, who looks very average, are given preference over young English players, or academy players. He believes that if the big clubs scout properly then all of this transfer money could be used to buy talent from the lower leagues, and go back into the English grass roots game. With players like Dele Alli and Jamie Vardy currently playing really well, I have a huge respect for his comments and think they are spot on. Do you think we will see a shift back towards proper scouting and development of players as a result of these guys? Or will clubs continue to go for the expensive foreign options? I think it's a great point, and that Saints aren't exempt from this (look at the Martina signing for one, Gaston as another)
I don't think Martina is great by any stretch but he cost a pittance and has been okay last couple of games. Saying that, there's some credence to what you and this guy are saying. However, the reason people have become keen to look abroad is as much to do with the 'British premium' as bad scouting. Yes there are lower league gems out there, but you're also dealing with having to pay a lot more for them as a rule than you may get bargains from abroad (step forward Schneiderlin, M. as one of a number of cases in point).
Not sure the decline is in the scouting, but more the talent. I agree with LTL that the cost can be an issue. I haven't been for a while, but the last time I watched Northampton play, it was fun trying to find a player who could control, the ball.
The Peterborough Chairman has a point, as once upon a time most of the higher league teams would look below them first when looking for talent. I am not sure if it is the Scouting team that is the problem or if there is a genuine lack of talent in the lower divisions. Also perhaps part of the problem now is that the British higher teams academies are multi national too. Certainly a high proportion of players in them are from abroad. Another problem surely is that if the bigger or higher ranked clubs did keep raiding the lower leagues for their best players surely they would claim that the HL-Teams were scavenging and doing them no favours by taking their best players. Like they did a while back now when there was a decent few talented players coming through. (60/70's) Add to that the fact that a lot of the lower team sides have also a lot of foreign players in them. It could be that if we do pull out of the European market this anomaly may even be reversed which will probably have the lower league sides complaining yet again. Although some will not see it that way it is true.
The top PL teams who pay the top transfer fees want proven talent, so most of the money is not going to be splashed in the lower divisions anyway. I'm sure that the other "lesser" teams do scout the lower leagues more and I'm also sure there are a few examples of their success. They then get poached by the top teams when they have proven themselves at the higher level. We all know how it works. The numbers are probably affected by the quality now available as FLT said. In general, if they are any good (like Deli Alli) they will get picked up straight from the lower leagues. In the cases of Vardy and Rickie Lambert maybe they did slip through the net but perhaps they were late developers, they had enough teams between them before they were spotted.
I think the standard generally in the lower leagues is higher than its ever been. The main reason being that many of the players would otherwise have been playing in the Premier league were it not for the influx of foreign players. I remember writing on here a few years back that our Championship team was probably our best ever. Ok so you have to factor in fitness levels and so on but it was certainly as good as many of our top flight teams over the years. I suspect there is a lot of British talent out there, hungry too. The trouble is, of course, that if the FA were able to put sensible quotas for the number of home-grown players in a team it could actually make the situation worse. As FLT points out, there is already a 'premium' on the British/English players and it could become even greater.
Good points, I forgot the English premium factor. It isn't just scouting as well. I think there is a real problem with premier league clubs not spending the time developing players properly or giving them a chance. There was a time when nobody thought Giggs, Beckham and Scholes wouldn't make the grade for Manchester United - but they mixed experience with the youth and developed them into the world class players they are. Nowadays, they would have been loaned out and a Spanish player would be brought in. There is an 'Instant success' mentality that all of the money and our premier league rise has brought in. I look at a lot of saints fans giving James Ward-Prowse a load of stick recently. How will he ever improve if he doesn't play? Has he ever let us down? He is by no means the finished article, yet I hear so many people writing him off. Young players need time and proper nurturing, not dogs abuse because they aren't scoring 40-yard screamers at 20 years of age. I would rather see a youngster coming through than a mercenary any day, and am longing to see a few coming back through the ranks again!
Maybe the loan system needs to be adjusted, in order to stop teams like Chelsea sucking up more players than they need, only to loan them out and get them off the wage bill, then try and sell them on after they have destroyed their confidence. By stopping the big teams overloading on young players, the spread of decent young players would become more even, as it used to be, allowing them to develop at a lower level, then be sold on to the bigger English clubs, keeping the money here. A bit simplistic, but it might help.
t must have been the windy conditions and the pitch that made ball control difficult. Last time I looked they were in League 2, top 3 so can't be that bad as our friends are in 4th in that division.
You may have a point. Are we even scouting the London area as years ago we had a number of players who came from there? I remember Steve Williams, the Wallace brothers, Austin Hayes I seem to remember and one of two others. From the NE we managed to unearth Alan Shearer and a Graham Baker ... and these guys were all found as youngsters and came up through the youth and reserve teams.
You are all forgetting the Reed situation. It's extremely annoying to me that we bought Clasie to play at DM instead of giving Reed a chance.. Edited out the swear word and replaced it with extremely. But it does really annoy me..
I remember being surprised by the standard of football in league 1. Surprised how many gems there were plying their trade in that division; Rickie Lambert might have seen out his career there if things had been different.
