As always, another article on the quality of the England squad and no doubt some question marks and surprises about some inclusions, Defoe being the highlighted one. Personally, for what is available Southgate has gone with a pretty good squad actually. Not great, but it's based off his opinion. Lets just see how well this squad does. But it's clear to everybody that this squad still needs major improvements to compete in tournaments and the big question is, how do we do it?
When you look at the teams such as Spain, Germany and Italy for example, most of their talent comes from the top sides in their league or on the continent as well. Just to pick the Spain squad for example, usually most of their 25 man squad is made up of Barca and both Madrid's players, along with the other top sides in the country that are usually in Europe consistently, such as Sevilla, Athletic Bilbao and Villareal. The players for the latter 3 clubs are the one's who usually "make up" the 25 man squad. You sometimes will you see an anomaly where maybe 1/2 mid table players are involved, but they are usually the stand out one's. The difference being, these "stand out mid table" players for England are usually the one's who are competing in the starting 11 or 18 game match day squad. For England to become a success, the players need to be playing at the highest level or European competitions like the other countries do.
For me, the way to do this is by having a bigger limit on the amount of Foreign players in the league, or implementing a homegrown rule. You look at countries like Spain and the clubs there cannot have more than 3 Non-EU players in their squad. Take some of the top teams in England, they have more than 3 Non-EU players in their squad.
Man City: Otamendi, Aguero, Bravo, Jesus (likely more)
Man United: Romero, Rojo, Valencia, Bailley (likely more)
Chelsea: Willian, Luiz, Moses, Kenedy (likely more)
Obviously, some of these players don't get in the first team of the matchday squad, but either way, they are still taking up a spot in the first team squad. This spot could be taken up by another homegrown player, which at the end of the day, could be another player that might make it all the eay if at a bigger club.
Realistically speaking, the time scale it would take to get teams to abide by this rule would be difficult, but with the current crop of money in the English game, implementing this rule on Non-EU or even Non-Homegrown players potentially could be the difference to how the English team performs national level.
It's just a (very long) thought.
England squad
posted on 16/3/17
Homegrown rule is a load of nonsense. All it does is drive up the prices of homegrown players and essentially turn them into commodities. Look at the prices players are moving for or being rumoured to be valued at because of their passport in recent years:
Stones - £50m
Barkley - £40m-rated
Wilshere - £30m-rated
Shaw - £26m
Zaha - £25m-rated
That's shambolic and we all know it. Far better value on the continent such as:
Marquinios - £30m
Isco - £30m
Thiago - £21m
Alex Sandro - £25m
Sanchez - £32m
Implementing these rules solves absolutely nothing. If the players were good enough they'd play more often, bottom line is that they're not because they're not coached well enough and they probably don't work hard enough at their game to improve.
As for the actual squad itself, I don't see Defoe being picked as a surprise as he's had a good season to back up his previous good seasons - unlike that useless one-trick cheating lowlife rat Vardy who shouldn't be anywhere near the squad.
posted on 16/3/17
time for a few more injuries between now and Germany. But Defoe has been pretty resilient and can still shoot first time. So.... good choice under the circumstances.
posted on 16/3/17
Yes, exactly. Homegrown players cost so much because the best homegrown players are so much more valuable than what foreign players are to an extent. In England each team needs a minimum of 8 HG players within their squad, so the top clubs want the best. Hence why players like Delph and Sinclair both moved to City.
However, what if the rule was that each club has to have 8 HG players along with 4 players trained through their own youth team or academy in their squad? Then we can cut down on the number of foreign players and then in years to come, the number of English players goes up and they are given more of a chance.
If this "rule" was to be enforced, you ship out the squad's worst foreign players to other teams across the globe and then suddenly at least 4 players that are homegrown must be in the match day squad then if the squad is full strength, not taking into account injuries of course.
This then in turn, cuts out the number of foreign players (slowly) in each squad in the PL and then gives homegrown talent a much better chance of improving. If this rule was to be enforced, 4/18 players in a match day squad minimum would be in a club's squad. That then means there are at least 80 homegrown players involved in the fixtures. That figure is better than what it would be now that's for sure and it turn gives youth much more of a chance. Lets think about it, there are going to be maybe even a mere few players that might get a look in out of that "80" minimum. Increases the chances then.
posted on 16/3/17
comment by NotSoMagicJuande (U1913)
posted 3 hours, 1 minute ago
I definitely agree with you in principle.
I think putting a limit on non-eu might be a bit too restrictive though.
What I'd love to see is a requirement of the number of UK players in a match day squad. If you had to have, say, four then clubs would take their academies more seriously and in time talent at that level would grow.
Two big problems tho
The first is the TV companies and the money behind the premier league. They want the best talent on show so that they can have the most marketable product that gets worldwide attention; they couldn't care less if youth players get a chance.
Also, would it start to be affected by employment laws? Saying that UK citizens have priority employment over foreign? I could be wrong!
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Good idea, but if you had to have four HG players what's the chances of all 4 being on the bench and the other 3 subs come on ahead of them? It means they'd never play. Fine balance but there'd be a way around it for the top teams to continue playing foreigners over HG players.
posted on 16/3/17
Agree with the above.
There has to be some way of making sure that (especially the top teams) HG players get minutes on the pitch. We have seen demonstrations of it and it's been quite successful really, the likes of Sterling at Liverpool, Rashford at United and I'd even go as far to say Stones at Everton and now City (even though yes he's a poor CB imo but still back ups the point).
There have been promising signs when these youngsters come through. For me, the only one of these that has "correctly" developed so far is Sterling because he's been playing consistently. My worry is that even though these players come through the youth systems, they need consistent minutes on the pitch. The reasons why your Gerrard's, Lampard's, Carragher's, Rooney's etc turned out to be as good and as successful as they were, because they got minutes on the pitch when they were young. Not suggesting Sterling will ever reach the levels them players once did, but the point is he is slowly becoming a very good player because he is playing games.
Players like Rashford, even though still very premature and young, will not develop as well if they don't get this game time which he hasn't this season. The same reasons why Welbeck, Walcott and Chamberlin for example are as good as what they are, good players to have, but not top players.
posted on 16/3/17
comment by JustYourAverageFan (U21016)
posted 5 minutes ago
Agree with the above.
There has to be some way of making sure that (especially the top teams) HG players get minutes on the pitch. We have seen demonstrations of it and it's been quite successful really, the likes of Sterling at Liverpool, Rashford at United and I'd even go as far to say Stones at Everton and now City (even though yes he's a poor CB imo but still back ups the point).
There have been promising signs when these youngsters come through. For me, the only one of these that has "correctly" developed so far is Sterling because he's been playing consistently. My worry is that even though these players come through the youth systems, they need consistent minutes on the pitch. The reasons why your Gerrard's, Lampard's, Carragher's, Rooney's etc turned out to be as good and as successful as they were, because they got minutes on the pitch when they were young. Not suggesting Sterling will ever reach the levels them players once did, but the point is he is slowly becoming a very good player because he is playing games.
Players like Rashford, even though still very premature and young, will not develop as well if they don't get this game time which he hasn't this season. The same reasons why Welbeck, Walcott and Chamberlin for example are as good as what they are, good players to have, but not top players.
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They made it in because they were good enough. Would I want Spurs to potentially lessen the team to fulfil some tickbox exercise? Hell no.
posted on 16/3/17
Spurs wouldn't be the only one's weakening their sides though in the league, without a doubt.
They were good enough to be given a chance, yes, but they took it and they are looking to develop further and it's a system that worked. Nobody can argue that Rashford wasn't instrumental for United up top for nearly half of the league season last campaign.
posted on 16/3/17
Right so nobody was against picking homegrown players then. They saw a talented player and played him. Maybe these English players should take a look at their foreign counterparts and ask themselves why they lack the technical ability of their peers
posted on 17/3/17
comment by JustYourAverageFan (U21016)
posted 3 hours, 56 minutes ago
Agree with the above.
There has to be some way of making sure that (especially the top teams) HG players get minutes on the pitch. We have seen demonstrations of it and it's been quite successful really, the likes of Sterling at Liverpool, Rashford at United and I'd even go as far to say Stones at Everton and now City (even though yes he's a poor CB imo but still back ups the point).
There have been promising signs when these youngsters come through. For me, the only one of these that has "correctly" developed so far is Sterling because he's been playing consistently. My worry is that even though these players come through the youth systems, they need consistent minutes on the pitch. The reasons why your Gerrard's, Lampard's, Carragher's, Rooney's etc turned out to be as good and as successful as they were, because they got minutes on the pitch when they were young. Not suggesting Sterling will ever reach the levels them players once did, but the point is he is slowly becoming a very good player because he is playing games.
Players like Rashford, even though still very premature and young, will not develop as well if they don't get this game time which he hasn't this season. The same reasons why Welbeck, Walcott and Chamberlin for example are as good as what they are, good players to have, but not top players.
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Rashford has played 37 times this season and around half of those were starts. A lot of football for a guy who was 18 at the start of the season
posted on 17/3/17
Not consistently though. A lot of those were starts, but how many times has Rashford played consecutive games? Has he been given a "fair" chance in the team at the expense of Ibra lets say? Has he been given 5/6 games in the team to prove himself this season? Not so much as last season when he started for the majority of his half season where he was tearing defences up.