International General England thread

[samjp26]

It find it funny how the FA point the finger at clubs, moaning about how hard it is for players to break through in the Premier League, but I think they'll find that there are many clubs in the Premier League with young English players in abundance.

 

There are even young English players that play for the top 6, Tom Cleverley as an example, but Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard both would/do start ahead of him even though they're into their 30's.

 

You also have to question why players MUST be from the Premier League? Do we not have fantastic English youth systems at clubs like Middlesbrough or Sheffield United? There are also some very good English talents within the Championship and even League One, taking Lowton and Westwood as prime examples. Why does Paul Lambert's team have the ability to pick out two very good young, English players from the lower leagues but our own English FA do not? Neither player even managed to claim an Under-21 cap.

 

The FA will always come with excuses but it is plain to see that unless you are a playing for one of the top clubs in the Premier League, odds are you won't be getting a look in.

[KHV]

The problem with the england team is that 95% of players who play for england dont give a shit about playing for england. They get so much so young and most of them are playing in the CL already. Playing for england is not important as it was 15/20 years ago to players.

If im honest i think most international football is boring and I couldnt give two shits about it anyway. More often than not i get pissed off with international weeks because it ruins my saturday afternoons.

[VillaChris]

 

in before someone else says Italy at the euros had an all serie A team...

 

fwiw I agree, think a large problem we have is the belief that the prem = the worlds best league, rooney / gerrard / terry etc = the prems best players therefore they must automatically be some of the best players in the world, the penny never seems to drop that 9/10 leagues and international football is played very differently to what we see every Saturday, gerrards style of run / shoot / pass / kick people at 100mph, roy of the rovers "premier league" football for example IMO has never suited international football

 

the biggest problem being foreigners come here such as mata, fabregas, Ronaldo etc and become better players from it, we stay here and get stuck in our (unsuccessful) ways

 

 

But thats not what I said though. I said there were a lot more Italians playing top flight

 

 

Never use Italy as a comparison, the Inter Milan treble team of 2010 didn't have a single Italian starting in the champions league final that year.

[Oaks]

I think what us England fans have to get used to us it's going to get worse before it gets better. There is very little talent coming through, and yes the Gerrards, Lampards, Coles and Rooneys have failed to win anything but they are all very good players, and probably played through our most consistent era. If Wilshire is the best there is to come we are ****. I don't see him being any better than Delph, yet is the great hope of English football.

[Dodgyknees]

The saddest thing about my prediction is that I didn't bet on it.

I don't understand this idea that it is foreign players in the premier league causing the issue.

The Belgium top flight is championship standard (at best) so their best players also have to break into a tough premier league yet they manage it because they have talented youngsters coming through.

If England had a good group of young players coming up they would get bought but the simple fact is that the talent isn't there.

Agreed. If anything it's beneficial to the English game as it gives young English players more competition.

I don't think so, these players are lost at the academy level and filter down. Clubs buy young foreign talent, English players are released - perhaps by the foreign coaching set up - and this has been happening for 10-15 years. These players waste away, unless a savvy manager picks them up - Lambert for example. I highly doubt Mourinho or Wenger would have gone for Westwood or Lowton. The pressure is there for them to buy foreign talent or overpriced and average players like Sinclair. Their fans would go mad if they bought Westwood from Crewe.

So, young players lose out to young foreign talent and then don't get bought when they mature because of the pressure to succeed. We must have lost a lot of good players over the years.

[PaulC]

Yes I 100% agree there's fewer and fewer English players in the Premier League every year and that will only get worse.

[TRS-T]

I'm struggling to understand why anyone cares about the England team any more.

 

Those running it from the FA never do anything to try and sort out or real issues and instead make the right noises while feathering their own nests and in reality changing nothing. It is beyond laughable that the FA think part of the solution to our problems is ensuring we have an English coach.

What can Hodgson or any England manager do about the fact we have an ever decreasing pool of questionable talent to pick from? Nothing is the answer. The real problems are at the grass roots of the game, the comparison between England and Spain of the number of qualified coaches in each country really demonstrates the real issue and just how deep rooted the problems are.

 

Build the facility in Burton is a step in the right direction but I doubt it will do anything to really change the face of English football.

 

Neither will the mutterings of a former journalist given the keys to the FA sweetshop, talking about the ills of the modern game and the greed of the PL he had a hand in creating, who claims nobody could have seen the negative impact its creation would have. Yes they bloody could, people were talking about this very problem back in 1992 and saying it would have this very impact on the national side.

 

Then you have the team themselves, half the players seemingly don't give a monkeys about playing for England and most the time see it as something of an inconvenience  until an actual tournament comes around.

 

When it does they are too knackered and too pre-occupied with their club destination for the following season, their book deal, their wag or their hair plugins to actually perform.

 

Every qualification is the same, we get there in the end by hook or by crook and expectations go through the roof until we arrive somewhere and realise we are about as good as the local piss water beer served up to the real fans most of whom can't get tickets because they've all been given to McDonalds.

 

We aren't going to win anything now or in the future, we aren't going to sort out the problems in our game and in a few years time we will be picking the England squad out of the arse end of the PL or the Championship.

 

We are a second rate international team these days and those who could do something about it aren't about to so simply getting to Euro's or WC's is about the best we can hope for and should really be the expectation.

 

That is why I'm not even bothered if we qualify or not.

 

So should we all support Spain then?

 

Villa have been fighting relegation for the last 3 seasons and getting hammered 8-0 at Chelsea and 4-0 at home but you didn't say 'I'm not even bothered if we get relegated or not'

[villa4europe]

yeah but its safe to say I support villa a lot more than I support England...

 

when was the last time you watched something else knowing full well a villa game was on another channel? when was the last time you watched another team knowing villa was on another channel?

 

how many of us watched benteke vs Scotland on Friday night rather than England?

 

even at McLeish's worst I wasn't anywhere near as apathetic as I am to hodgson's England, ive watched about 4 England games in the last 2 years

[TrentVilla]

 

I'm struggling to understand why anyone cares about the England team any more.

 

Those running it from the FA never do anything to try and sort out or real issues and instead make the right noises while feathering their own nests and in reality changing nothing. It is beyond laughable that the FA think part of the solution to our problems is ensuring we have an English coach.

What can Hodgson or any England manager do about the fact we have an ever decreasing pool of questionable talent to pick from? Nothing is the answer. The real problems are at the grass roots of the game, the comparison between England and Spain of the number of qualified coaches in each country really demonstrates the real issue and just how deep rooted the problems are.

 

Build the facility in Burton is a step in the right direction but I doubt it will do anything to really change the face of English football.

 

Neither will the mutterings of a former journalist given the keys to the FA sweetshop, talking about the ills of the modern game and the greed of the PL he had a hand in creating, who claims nobody could have seen the negative impact its creation would have. Yes they bloody could, people were talking about this very problem back in 1992 and saying it would have this very impact on the national side.

 

Then you have the team themselves, half the players seemingly don't give a monkeys about playing for England and most the time see it as something of an inconvenience  until an actual tournament comes around.

 

When it does they are too knackered and too pre-occupied with their club destination for the following season, their book deal, their wag or their hair plugins to actually perform.

 

Every qualification is the same, we get there in the end by hook or by crook and expectations go through the roof until we arrive somewhere and realise we are about as good as the local piss water beer served up to the real fans most of whom can't get tickets because they've all been given to McDonalds.

 

We aren't going to win anything now or in the future, we aren't going to sort out the problems in our game and in a few years time we will be picking the England squad out of the arse end of the PL or the Championship.

 

We are a second rate international team these days and those who could do something about it aren't about to so simply getting to Euro's or WC's is about the best we can hope for and should really be the expectation.

 

That is why I'm not even bothered if we qualify or not.

 

So should we all support Spain then?

 

Villa have been fighting relegation for the last 3 seasons and getting hammered 8-0 at Chelsea and 4-0 at home but you didn't say 'I'm not even bothered if we get relegated or not'

 

 

Yes, you should support Spain. That is exactly the point I was making.

 

Only obviously it wasn't but never mind.

[TrentVilla]

Has Walcott had much stick? He was the very definition of a dumb footballer last night. If he has to think he falls apart. Didn't make one decent footballing decision all match. Always not only the wrong pass but in most cases the worst pass.

 

Surely nobody expects any different given that is the norm with Walcott.

[maqroll]

There is no passion in the England side, and there hasn't been for some time now. I remember 1997 in Rome...it was incredible, even as a neutral. They were great fun to watch because they played hard and wore their hearts on their sleeves. Nowadays it looks a lot like apathy.

[villa_shere]

Blame Media expectations, check!

 

Blame fans expectations, check!

 

Blame Foreingers ,Check!

 

Blame the premier league fixtures, Check!

 

Blame Manager, Check!

 

Blame the players???

 

Blame the FA??

[Zatman]

think the English players get away with murder a lot of the times. If England play badly its nearly always the coach getting the stick or even the ref.

 

As great as they have been for their clubs the fact is a lot of them have woefully underperformed. Gerrard, Lampard and Wilshire couldnt pass or control the midfield on tuesday night yet people blamed Hodgson for that

[coda]

Premier League clubs back Greg Dyke's FA commission on English talent

 

• Chairmen agree to contribute 'expertise and knowledge'

• Dyke wants league to include more English players

Premier League clubs have agreed to work with a commission set up by the Football Association to improve the development of players available to England.

The backing was secured at Thursday's meeting of Premier League shareholders in London, which was attended by Greg Dyke after the FA chairman claimed in his opening speech in the role last week that "English football is a tanker that needs turning".

Dyke had also noted that there was a "frightening trend" in the gradual decrease of English players in the Premier League and a recent Guardian study showed the proportion of English players in top-flight starting XIs has sunk to an all-time low of just over a third.

Despite antagonism between the FA and the Premier League since the division's inception in 1992, all 20 club chairmen and the league's board agreed to work with the FA to "contribute their expertise, knowledge and understanding of the issues and challenges in regard to producing England-qualified talent".

A statement read: "The Premier League clubs today met and affirmed their commitment to engaging in a collaborative and co-operative manner with the debate and process outlined by the FA chairman in his recent speech. The structure of this engagement will be defined between the Premier League and the FA as more detail about the process envisaged by the FA chairman is established."

Less than 10% of the £630m spent on new signings during the summer transfer window went on English players and Dyke has invited the Football League, Professional Footballers' Association and League Managers Association as well to join the commission, which could be established this month.

Dyke, who has also set England the target of winning the 2022 World Cup, welcomed the Premier League's decision to support his plans. He said: "I am pleased that the Premier League clubs, board and executive all want to contribute to the commission I am setting up. There is a great deal of knowledge there and I am sure we will be able to find some very concrete ways of improving the pool of talent available to England managers.

"We already know there is a lot of good work going on but I suspect there is more to be done. The FA's investment in and commitment to coaching is exemplified by St George's Park. The Premier League's focus on youth development through the Elite Player Performance Plan promises much."

The new Premier League chairman, Anthony Fry, a friend of Dyke's, said: "There is no doubt around the Premier League table as to the benefits of a national set-up that is thriving and performing well. That is why the Premier League clubs, board and executive all signed up to contributing to the process of debate initiated by Greg."

It may be only talk at the moment but at least Gweg is trying to do something.

[AVFCforever1991]

Dyke, heh.

[BOF]

If it's done right then it's exactly what needs to happen. The likes of France, Germany and Switzerland looked at their setups and have reaped rewards from it. England would do well to start with what those countries decided upon and see what's relevant to their own discussions. My opening four words are massive though and I simply find it impossible to believe that it will be done right. There are too many vested interests and poisonous influences in the game and the ones who don't want the boat rocked are the richest and most influential of them all. The Premier League. The trouble is that if this process is solely tasked with making decisions to better the English national team then in reality those tough decisions need to be made without the presence of the Premier League teams, because all they'll do is throw a spanner in the works. That can't happen of course. You can't decide to make potential changes to the game without having the top flight have their say. So I think it's doomed to failure from the off.

[TrentVilla]

Talk is cheap and often meaningless.

[blandy]

Talk is cheap and often meaningless.

 

Thats why it's only a penny for your thoughts

[kingysilvers]

While I do care about England, I hope we fail to qualify for the World Cup.

 

Firstly just to see a few people reap what they sow, the FA in appointing Hodgson as well as Hodgson himself for being the kind of conservative dullard who thinks clinging on to a 0-0 draw against Ukraine is some kind of epic achievement. I don't think failing to qualify will cause some massive cultural change where we won't see the likes of Hodgson appointed again but it will at least save the cracks being papered over before a humiliating World Cup performance.

 

Which brings me nicely onto my second, much more selfish reason. I love the World Cup, it's great fun to watch and I don't want my impression of the whole tournament dragged down by the embarrassment of the national team and subsequent navel gazing while the media spend the summer pointing out the bleeding obvious. 

Edited September 13, 2013 by kingysilvers

[Voinjama]

If England don't qualify for the world cup, then the atmosphere in the country will be so dull.