I passed an obese family this morning whilst out at a country park with the present Mrs Uber, trio of Uberlings and Uberwoof. The son, who must have been around 14 and clearly academically challenged, was wearing a XXXL t-shirt that was emblazoned "England 2014... BELIEVE." That right there summed up for me the England campaign for me.
Some interesting points raised in this 'discussion'. DT's central contracts idea is too impractical to work within the next ten years, mainly because PL clubs are now poaching primary school boys from wherever they can, these won't be the finished article within the next decade so to try and start from scratch really isn't on. Add to that the fact that parents would be given a choice, send your talented son to the England set-up on peanuts or to a Champions League contender with all the riches that offers and it's no contest. I feel we are now too far gone down the foreign players road to ever get any semblance of an English foothold in the PL again. The 6 & 5 plan that was mooted a few years back would have been perfect but falls down due to EU Laws. There is so much money in the PL that it really does dictate everything and England are a long way down that list of priorities as is shown by the buying policy of most of the top clubs. For all Greg Dyke's big plan to win the World Cup within ten years the reality is we will continue to be also-rans because our academies will be used to 'aid' the development of more foreign than English players and the national set-up, with Hodgson separated from the youth development side of things, will continue to hinder rather than help our best young players. A radical change would be to employ someone with vision, say Glenn Hoddle to run the England set-up from the bottom upwards. Get a proper ball-skills based set-up and develop each age-level the same way so kids progress seamlessly towards the top level playing the same style and tactical set-up. Get a forward-looking coach such as Brendan Rodgers as manager and you would have a perfect set-up to bring the skill-levels up to match the best in Europe, that would 'grow' the team as DT says but it would still take a few years to gel, such a structure must be a long-term project...
I think the six plus five is OK, clubs aren't stopped from signing players just not playing them. There's no restriction of trade, EU personel can still be employed. There is another way around like they do in NA, the pfa and fa can come to an agreement and that bypasses the law, hence why some sports can have a salary cap. I think rugby does in the UK.
