And is an unused sub in two defeats. By standard group stage format that puts us out of the competition doesn't it? Maybe if they'd used Tom Lees we wouldn't have been so poor at the back.
The competiton's a farce. We left half our best side behind. Why couldn't we take Wilshire, Welbeck & others who were all eligible?
Why not? What have any of our national football teams won since 1966? Time we actually triedto win something, & stuff the egos of over-paid prima donnas!!!
Why not? What have any of our national football teams won since 1966? Time we actually triedto win something, & stuff the egos of over-paid prima donnas!!!
Eire, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you're taking the mick.... Especially after just being dumped out of the U21's by Norway. But I know you have a soft spot for the English, so I'll put it down to exuberance.
Boggers we won't win anything for the foreseeable future not with the way English football is going. Too many non British managers with no idea about the British Game keep getting 'big' jobs.
Simple really. When Prem clubs can field a starting eleven that contain no English players, then you have to worry. English talent are not being developed enough in the top flight. Players like Welbeck and Wilshere are good but not great. To win a World Cup you need a squad of 23 very capable players who can interchange easily. When Spain can bring David Villa off the bench, Germany bring on Podolski and the team dynamic is not affected, that shows you a capable squad. At the last WC there was so much hype over England, but you knew it was rubbish. Now a 2-2 draw with Brazil in a friendly and suddenly England are once again candidates to win in 2014. So here's a test for you, name your England starting eleven. Now discard those players and name your next starting eleven. How easy is it to pick two teams that can blend into genuine challengers? It's not!! And the problem starts with the very first position, goalkeeper. The Prem, Sky and Champs Lge are contributing to the decline of England as a footballing nation. For me, there should be a minimum of seven English players in the starting lineups of all Prem clubs, and this should be enforced for at least ten seasons to fix the imbalance and improve the quality of English players. I said the U21s were over hyped, and it shows!!!! Technically Italy made England look pretty ordinary, a huge worry. And this when Italian football is broke, and Serie A meant to be in decline. This myth that the Prem is the best league in the world needs to end. It's the best PAID league in the world, and it can't produce enough talent for the national team. England runs the risk of ending up playing at the same level as Iceland if this greed continues to take precedent over football.
I think Arsenal and Chelsea can field a starting 11 of non English players. There was a couple of years were Arsenal only had Cole as the only English player in there starting 11. I can't remember when Arsenal actually bought an English player. I've been trying to think when the last set of decent English kids came through a prem youth system and not the odd one here and there. I've got a strange feeling that i was us under O'Leary or Possibly West Ham under Redknapp. Wellbeck will be an average but I do believe Wiltshire will be great. He won't be like Scholes or Gazza but nearly there. Wellbeck has only scored twice this season. If you look at Holt, Hooper and Lambert who have scored more but won't get in because they're not a 'trendy' clubs. If you look at the years we've done well at competitions we picked the players from across all teams in the Prem. To win the world cup we need to look beyond the top four and Everton. We won't win the next world cup. The 7 player rule won't ever be possible with the likes of Jol and Wenger in charge of English teams. Of course Italy made us look inept our kids will never play top flight football. We're going to get worse Keegan once said an england manager will one day have to look for players in the second tear. The prem is not the best it's the most competitive. For best Germany,Spain and Italy are better than us. As fir the future it doesn't look bright.
Best idea to sort this mess out, is for a rule that says all England players must play at least 10 times for the under 21 side before being able to play in the senior squad. If they can't do that then the only way is to reduce foreign players, simples
Doc, unfortunately EU law won't allow the PL to reduce the intake of foreign players that much. The Home Office/DWP, the mob that decide whether or not a foreign national is experienced enough to play for an English team, could do a lot more to raise the bar. But there's nothing they could do to exclude European union ppt holders (EU Law on the right of free movement). Hate to say it guys, but its one thing ManUre have got right. Whatever else they do, they still manage to bring on plenty of English/British & Irish talent. If it wasn't for them, West Ham, ourselves, & to a lesser extent the Arse, England would really struggle to field even a remotely decent team. That said, had it not been for injuries and a dodgy selection policy, this U21 team would have looked quite good - Raheem Sterling, Danny Welbeck, & Jack Whilshire to name but three who either didn't play or were barred by either the FA or Hodgson.
When last have ManUre brought through spades of talent from their academy that made an impact on their team and went on to star for England? They, like Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, have academies where the majority of players are foreign. Another myth, this ManUre develops English / British players stuff. What ManUre do is buy good young 'uns developed elsewhere, as do all the top Prem clubs now. Jones (Blackburn), Zaha (Palace), Moses (Palace originally, the irony he won't declare for England), Henderson (Sunderland), Cleverly (poached from Bradford juniors) and so on.
