Imagine the scenario a draconian FA wanta to promote the national team ahead of the profitable Premier League and mandates a full English or full British starting 11 capability per club. As a matter of fact of all the top flight teams we would be best placed and capable of a quality starting 11. This is not to discount that other teams can field an English starting 11 but of all the teams capable of that, ours would be still top of the lot. An attacking 4-3-3 : Ben Amos Phil Jones - Ferdinand - Keane (or Wootton) - Smalling Cleverly - Carrick - Powell (Powell as attacking mid, supporting striker through the middle) Welbeck - Rooney - Young (Giggs if FA also don't mind the home nation's players) That is a full English team and way better than any other Premier League team can muster. Some don't even get 5 players together (Chavs, Man $hitty and gooners)
Forgot Zaha! He's as good as Ronaldo you know! In all honesty though, everyone but Keane/Wootton, Amos, and Powell, play on regular basis if they're not consistent starters.
I would love to see a rule a stating you must have 5 English / British players starting every game. Imagine how much over priced English players would become though!
Breaking transfer news: Liverpool resign Andy Carroll for £65million! Yes, they are too stupid to realise hes only out on loan.
Spain's whole squad is comprised of of Madrid and Barca players and 5 from other teams across Europe. Not too sure about Germany but I imagine its largely Bayern Munich with a supplement from a few other clubs. In England, other than United, most of the players are spread out across quite a few teams.
I remember Cappelo complained that there was little stock to pick from and got slated for it. Eventually it will come to Premier League vs National team and serious reforms are needed to help England become a top nation. Don't let the hype fool you that we're up there.
I remember Cappelo complained that there was little stock to pick from and got slated for it. Eventually it will come to Premier League vs National team and serious reforms are needed to help England become a top nation. Don't let the hype fool you that we're up there.
I mean teams who could field a team made up of their own countrymen. I would think quite a lot more that one team from each of those leagues could muster up a team of German, Italian or Spanish players.
Well if you were an upcoming talent from South America, Eastern Europe, would rather play for a mid table Spanish team or a mid table English team? Not taking into account that the Spanish team probably couldn't pay your wages as the big 2 take almost all the tv money.
------------------Elliot------------------- --Simpson--S.Taylor---Williamson---Tavernier ------------------Perch--------------------- -Ryan Taylor--------------------Sammy Ameobi ------------------Gosling-------------------- ----------Campbell----Shola Ameobi------- Subs: Steve Harper Nile Ranger Not a terrible side. We have some good English up and comers, despite how much media coverage there is about our French players. And that's without counting other home nations and Bigirimana, who if he chooses England at National level, is far in excess of most English prospects.
Saints. Davis Clyne Martin Seaborne/Chambers Shaw Puncheon Cork Davis Lallana Lambert Rodriguez Only worry would be the centre backs, otherwise this is pretty much our starting line up anyway, other than Ramirez and Schnederlin.
You do realise there are more than four teams in the league? Norwich particularly have a lot of British players-about 90% of the squad.
To be fair I think most PL teams could field an English starting XI that would be of proportional quality to their overall XI. So we would have the best quality XI because we have the best overall squad. I think if every club had to field an English (or British) only XI then the table would look much like it is now, with the exception of City, Arsenal and Chelsea whose teams would all be in the bottom half. Look at the other top clubs and all they're really missing is goalkeepers: Spurs --------------GK Walker-Dawson-Caulker-Naughton Lennon-Parker-Hudd-Livermore-Bale/Townsend --------------Defoe Everton --------------GK Hibbert-Jagielka-Neville-Baines ----Gibson-Osman-Barkley- --McAleny-Naismith-Kennedy Liverpool: --------------GK Wisdom-Kelly-Carragher-Johnson Sterling-Gerrard-Henderson-Shelvey-Downing ----------------Sturridge The Everton team does rely on a couple of Scottish players and Gibson being considered as Northern Irish, but Everton have such a small squad you need to give them a bit of flexibility! Obviously none of those would come close to our side in the league, but would give us a decent game in a one off which is unsurprising given Everton and Spurs took points off our full team. Other decent clubs like Swansea and Stoke could probably cope even better with an all English / British player policy. The main problem is that of the top clubs only Utd really commits to having many English players. Chelsea, City and Arsenal are all too willing to pick any player they can get to try and shortcut to the top or save some cash. Also the fans are willing to let them - I doubt fans of Real or Barca would be particularly happy with a team that was mostly non Spanish, but City, Chelsea and Arsenal fans are happy to hero worship foreign players and mercenaries so it's easy for the clubs to fill their team with them. That's the main reason it filters to the national side - the top sides like Spain and Germany draw most of their players from two or three clubs, and those clubs are the best so players have the experience of winning consistently. You can't do that in the UK cos, Utd aside, there aren't enough English players at one of the top clubs.
My Bad. That's a real surprise to me because as you said the media are all talking about French Newcastle. Kudos to you Geordies.
