Even without that, I think this is about more than getting a good England senior team. English football hasn't been self-renewing, and the pathway from academy to top level football is pretty broken (as the FA have correctly identified), hence a stream of players being brought in from elsewhere. There's a valid argument to say "who cares", but a tiny bit of sustainability would not go amiss, plus it would help with salary/transfer fee inflation. Anyway, B teams mean much bigger squads for Prem sides, so completely counterproductive. To be fair I've only skimmed it but can't see any substantial reason yet why B teams are better in the pathway than U21 leagues. Plus some causation v correlation cock-ups about German/Spanish B teams and their good national team. EPPP gets a name check but I don't know why these changes from 2 years ago are being forgotten before we can even see if things are better. Also the whole commision was broken from the start when brains like Hoddle and Ferdinand went on it. Luckily for everyone it won't ever happen. Here's the plan I made up two days ago which is clearly much better at fixing overly large squads at top level clubs.
No I don't mean they won't produce their own players, some of whom will no doubt be good enough, I was referring to the loan market, and the fact that the top clubs won't loan out squad players to the lower leagues if there is a 'B' team they can play in.
Currently being debated on talkSPORT. The FA's chairman Greg Dyke is on, debating with Adrian Durham. Durham is a Peterborough fan. He's asking how Dyke, ex-Brentford chairman, would've felt if this existed back then. He's getting really quite irate with Durham and is threatening to hang up.
I realize that, and I meant to be clearer with my point, which is without loan players from bigger clubs, the smaller or lower league teams would have to play their own youngsters which, in my view, is more beneficial. Let the higher /bigger clubs blood their own youngsters.
Dyke lost his rag and Durham totally pulled him up on page 71 of the report. It suggests that the Premier League clubs make a financial settlement in order to get the Football League to vote in favour...
Just looked up the source. Probably the worst bit of stats work I've ever seen. League 2 more matches in a season than Belgium and Portugal (just below) added together.
He is talking on Sky about foreigners coming in as special players and rarely playing in the EPL. Has a very good point as why should non-EEC players come in as special if they are really only good enough for the lower leagues. We've used this to get players in and it didn't do us any good.
- Has Mr Dyke ever visited Southampton? - Shaw, Chambers and Ward-Prowse are all 18, it's about opportunity - Take away our English players and looks what's left - There's no cohesion between the leagues, that's one of the problems - Southampton have been leading the way in terms of development - We've been doing it for a while - It's a system we focused on years ago and it's working well today still
talkSPORT now saying Saints are the example again. - They gave them games in League One and encouraged them - Southampton were too good for the Championship and more youth got games in the cup etc - Players step up yet another level to the Premier League and Adkins and Pochettino back youth players - Youth players like Shaw and Lallana now getting called up for England - All about playing opportunities and not the system itself - Too many clubs aren't focused on their academies
Thing is, if somehow, England win the World Cup in the Summer, all this will be buried because to the media & general public the "problem" would have been instantly solved. Just saw Dyke on Sky and he does look like a man who doesn't really believe in the product he's selling. He seems lacking in the detail, just kept on saying "have a look at the report". Still don't understand how putting these mega talented english kids into a league full of cloggers is going to improve them more than them playing in the U21 & U18 leagues??? It all smacks of "we have to be seen to be doing something, even if that something is ****ing stupid"
The Premier League could easily fund hundreds of new 3G pitches up & down the country for use by schools & colleges and the local community, which is critical when we have winters like the last two with months of games & training lost to bad weather. They give something back to their cities and in the long term, they reap the rewards with better players too. Win win.
