Greg Dyke made some interesting points about English football last week. A major concern must be the recent failures of English sides in tournaments and the apparent lack of young English players coming through. Mr Dyke mentioned that the FA would be looking at several areas, including quotas over the coming months. I don't see there being a "magic bullet" to solve the problems - here is what I think we should do: ⢠Quotas â I appreciate that applying a quota rule to our leagues would contravene European law, but I think itâs essential. Our young talent is being blocked by cheap foreign imports. I would implement a rule saying that at least 6 players in the starting XI of each game must be qualified to play for England. The rule to be relaxed for Welsh sides to be English or Welsh. This would be applied to all English leagues and domestic cup competitions). ⢠Regard the U21, U20 tournaments as being important to the development of our young players and take the strongest team possible - they learn how to play tournament football etc ⢠All England teams (all age groups) to play in a similar way (Southgate now oversees all age groups) ⢠Reduce the size of the Premier League to 18 ( at the same time restructure League 2 and the Conference to be League 2 North and South) ⢠Implement a mid-winter break (and ban teams from playing overseas friendlies during that break) ⢠Restrict the number of overseas players entering our Academies (max of 2 per club per age group) ⢠Coaching emphasis on youngsters to concentrate on technical skills ⢠Change of culture in identifying good young players which currently seems to be about size, pace and power (Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are not big!!) ⢠Small sided games/pitches to be extended to older age groups - 13-14 years. This keeps the emphasis on technique, not about who can kick it the furthest. ⢠Youth coaches to be encouraged to play ALL kids not just the best ones (you donât get better by sitting on the bench). ⢠Winning is not the be all and end all at that age â more important to teach kids how to play and enjoy it - and let them have the freedom to try things and fail ⢠More Premiership money to be ploughed into grass roots youth football â perhaps a FA levy which the FA could distribute to youth set ups that meet itâs youth policy criteria? ⢠Work with the Government to enhance school sports and improve facilities ⢠Train our coaches better, including making senior badges harder to achieve
In the last twenty years, I've gone from 100% support of England to a point where I'd probably not care that much if the national team withdrew from all international competitions indefinitely. Maybe then, I'd rediscover my love/support or it'd just fade completely. I think it's due to the players in the main, not because they underachieve (I can handle that and in my lifetime they pretty much always have) it's just that, by and large, they are so ****ish.
I wholeheartedly believe that foreign footballers are preventing England's success in major tournaments. They keep beating us.
Can I say this without pissing people off? Its a lack of heart. Every time I watch England I am amazed how little heart the team shows. You time and time again play under your collective ability. The first thing I would do is stop picking players based off their individual skill at their clubs and start picking players who exhibit a true team mentality. The English leagues are better, you have more teams in more competitive leagues that we do here in the US. You have better coaches, with better development of young players. Yet your team is in decline while the US is getting better and better. Honestly I do not think if the US played England today that you could beat the US team. The US team is full of players who are in the MLS or play internationally in teams that are in no way top of their leagues. Bradly plays for Roma, and Altidore plays for Sunderland. Thats really the extent of the decent teams we represent. Yet together they consistently play above their individual abilities. You want a better team, hire a better coaching staff one that stands up and stops picking a bunch of dudes who really do not seem to care. Bring on the Chesters, dudes who seem to play better than they should and then in my opinion you will stop the decline.
For the first time perhaps ever, bar one or two anomalies in teams above us, I agree with our FIFA ranking. I’d also agree that the USA would probably beat us, although as I’ve said, I can handle England being ****. There’s a lot wrong with the England team, too much than I could be bothered to type or even remember. But, I heard a caller on Radio5 recently making a point about our match v Italy in the last tournament, how Joe Hart made the most passes of any England player. Essentially, he would receive the ball (and like a lot of keepers in England) would just punt it aimlessly up field and surrender possession. A fair microcosm of how we fail tactically against the better sides. There’s so much I dislike, such as the players; the management; the FA; most England fans (especially the ones who join during the tournament), the media coverage/presentation; (especially ITV) and much more. Most of my emotion is negative towards the team but I still want them to win; just don’t particularly care anymore if they don’t. Initially, I'd indentify Euro ’96 and the many many ****s of Britpop/’Cool Britannia’ as sowing these sour seeds for me.
I'd be worried for you lot when your stars (Gerrard, Lampard etc) retire, because your depth in midfield is not amazing. Ironic coming from an Aus fan whose team is ****e now compared to what it was (When we had Kewell, Viduka, Neill, Cahill, Schwarzer and others at the height of their EPL careers) but the decline can be pretty sharp.
One of the ways to get around the quota law might be to offer incentives to clubs (rather than restrictions) to play English players. For example, clubs get paid say, 100,000 per player, per 70 minutes of footage they provide to the national setup (so they can assess players) in each game in the EPL, or 10,000 per player in the championship. So to qualify for the payment, if a club plays 11 English players for at least 70 minutes in a match, they get 1,100,000 for that game. If they play 3 players, they get 300,000 etc. The monetary payments could be paid out of the Golden Share each club receives, with any excess money not claimed reverting to FA sponsored youth programmes, training of grass roots coaching staff and qualifying academies for teams in Leagues 1 and 2.
USA just got beat 3-1 by Costa Rica. £1.1 million per game, per team? Potentially £41.8 million per club, £836 million for the entire PL. What if there are good players in the Championship? You pay all those the same, L1 has a couple of potential English kids that the top teams are looking at, could make the step up.... Where do you stop? A lot of this is left overs from Sven & Fabio, now Hodgson is stuck between a rock & a hard place, he leaves Carrick on the bench, press criticise, he brings Carrick on for A Nother, press criticise. Luckily Roy isn't one to listen to them too much, or all these people on Twatter either as he admits he doesn't understand it. So until we have English managers who have managed at the top then we'll always have this type of middle of the league manager, which I prefer to having another Italian or Swede. Graham Taylor was a top manager at the time then got shot down by the press & got wound up by them that it affected him. The press have a lot to answer for with the pressure they put on him & the players. This is a list of England managers, not as many as I thought, but recent years the English managers have been short lived. Coincidence? http://www.englandfootballonline.com/teammgr/MgrChron.html
there is **** all wrong with English football. there is plenty wrong with getting footballers from other countries instead of English players.
From yesterday, even a quote from SB in there! http://www1.skysports.com/football/...unsure-quota-suggestion-will-aid-england-team
For starters each PL club must start with at least 3 players who can play for England. Sadly though there is no quick or easy fix to the problem.
In reflection, it’d be interesting to know some of the demographic with regard to feelings towards England. Bluntly, I’d assume that perhaps England’s unwavering support would come from ‘patriots’ who’d support England as much as their club side – I’d say these could come from any age group. The under 25s will have grown up tolerant to a high level of brazen ****itude and will, in a lot of cases, see this as normal and therefore feel no extra animosity (e.g. perhaps will think nothing of seeing some twat on MOTD being interviewed with a pair of oversized headphones around his neck).
Just heard Big Sam and Harry on SSN talking about England. How ironic, one is famous for playing horrible long ball football and the other one for blowing huge fees on ageing foreigners.
Gerrard, Lampard, Wilshere, Carrick, Barkley all keeping Tom Huddlestone out of the team. If that midfield doesn't have depth, then none other than Spain's do.
Costa Rica is a good team but that was no where near the top US team. Altidore and Johnson came on late but were unable to start due to injuries and Bradley is still out with an injury. There were others missing to, so it was not an unexpected result.
Strange how we’ve achieved **** all and continually struggle yet apparently have the best midfield depth outside of Spain. As a country, we over inflate the value of our own players. Always have done and this is something of ridicule outside of England. It’s probably immeasurable, but how many of those players are ‘world class’? I’d suggest none.
Massively over-rated. Probably, they seem to have a ridiculously good squad on paper now. Came out of nowhere. I didn't even realise half of them were Belgian until recently. We all think Huddlestone's a world-beater don't we? Well those 5 are a lot better and in fact so are Cleverley and Milner. I'd say it's the opposite. It's cool to hate English players now for some reason and particularly those that aren't so flash like Cleverley for example. Everyone says he's **** despite that Hodgson, Moyes and Ferguson all clearly disagree.
