*Official* English Football Season 2013-14

[Uppercut]

The English first division prior to the European ban on English clubs was certainly amongst the highest level of football at the time, if not the highest - similar to the stature it has today in European football. For a good decade The European cup regularly featured an English winner or at least finalist.

It might make it easier to spot the great English players because so few of them are at top positions in their top clubs; but I'd say back then you had a far better range of players to pick from. It's either an amazing generational player (i.e. Gerrard or Scholes) or someone playing at a relegation battling club now.

Certainly, English football in general has to change its youth models and innovate; but I hate how people just dismiss the foreigner talk as some strictly xenophobic premise.

I don't really care if people believe it for xenophobic reasons or not. I'm making a strictly logical argument here.

I'll rephrase. Let's say the Premiership is foreigners-only, and the Championship is British players only. The Premiership is added in 1980, when there are very few foreigners in the Premiership. What happens to the standard of the Championship? Clearly, it hardly changes at all. How can it? It has all of the same players. There might be an alternative cause that makes the players become worse: being paid less, for example, or inferior facilities. But that's not a type of case I've ever seen made- those examples wouldn't add up in real life, and whichever alternative cause was identified could probably be solved directly.

So if an all-foreign Premiership doesn't make the standard of English players worse, how can a partially foreign Premiership? It doesn't add up. It's almost unique in football by not being a matter of opinion. It's just wrong, in the same way that 2+2=5 is wrong- you can prove it false from starting assumptions that everyone would agree on.

 

[Ikki]

I don't really care if people believe it for xenophobic reasons or not. I'm making a strictly logical argument here.

I'll rephrase. Let's say the Premiership is foreigners-only, and the Championship is British players only. The Premiership is added in 1980, when there are very few foreigners in the Premiership. What happens to the standard of the Championship? Clearly, it hardly changes at all. How can it? It has all of the same players. There might be an alternative cause that makes the players become worse: being paid less, for example, or inferior facilities. But that's not a type of case I've ever seen made- those examples wouldn't add up in real life, and whichever alternative cause was identified could probably be solved directly.

So if an all-foreign Premiership doesn't make the standard of English players worse, how can a partially foreign Premiership? It doesn't add up. It's almost unique in football by not being a matter of opinion. It's just wrong, in the same way that 2+2=5 is wrong- you can prove it false from starting assumptions that everyone would agree on.

No, because it's not that simple and the starting assumptions are true only to a point and not true all the way.

Foreign players help raise the standard of the premier league and also help the level of domestic players in that their quality is different, and perhaps at a higher level. That is the kind of starting assumption you might agree with. But it stops being true once the quality of the foreigner isn't high enough to do that. I think there is a tipping point where there are too many foreign players that aren't of a particularly high enough level to be said to be improving the level of the league; where instead maybe initially inferior English players could be given experience to improve in trying to adapt to that high level. At the moment, only the young prodigies of English talent really are getting a shot. And if even they don't hit the ground running at the top clubs their careers could forever take a different turn, perhaps away from a level they could have achieved.

Take Sturridge, he's always been considered a big talent but even he really never got much of a shot until Liverpool decided to get him. At 24 he's finally getting his first season at a top club, with top talent around him, entrusting him as their first choice forward. At Chelsea, despite the fact that they've spent millions trying to replace Drogba with a player worth a damn, he wasn't getting a proper look in, even when he was scoring when playing. They'd simply play Torres.

It's gotten to the point where you are either a child prodigy playing in one of the top English clubs, or you're simply not gonna make the grade and play for the lower level clubs. You're going to be stuck playing with inferior players around you and you'll never get the experience of playing against players of different styles or of even higher quality in different leagues (intercontinental tournaments).

It's very different learning your way in a club like United compared to one like Hull, for instance. The clubs share completely different cultures in terms of winning, playing, confidence, withstanding pressure/expectation, and many other intangibles. A good player can learn to become great there. That's far less likely to happen at a club like Hull (sorry Hull fans ). That's why someone like Ricky Lambert is such a novelty. So your scenario is shortsighted (the all foreign PL and all english CC) because if United is a club using all foreign players; that is an ENGLISH club which is amongst the greatest in the country, because of all its resources and history, putting all their initiative in making the foreign players better.

In essence, there is no middling range. It's a dangerous game to play when you're talking about national teams. You've simply set up a system where only the absolute best English players, from very early ages, get to the top level. That's great for getting prodigious talent; but some talent comes to fruition later (or would have if they'd been persisted with).

As I said, I don't think it's just this holding English players back; but it is a legit argument as one of the reasons why and bringing foreigners is a double-edged sword. In a related way you can see it through Aston Villa when you compare them last season and this season so far. Yes, last season they gave players (in their case youth) that maybe at that time weren't as good as many other players (as one could argue when it comes to English v Foreign players) but that one year of baptism by fire and scraping out of the relegation spots has changed those players forever. This year by contrast they look far more equipped to deal with it. In their first 3 games they stood strong against 3 of the best teams in the league.

The biggest conundrum in football (well, all sports) is identifying who can make that kind of leap or step up. It's something you can only guess at, at best, with the majority of players (some are prodigiously good enough to know from a very young age) and you can only find out by giving them a shot to prove themselves. But only a league which is giving enough opportunities to domestic players can ensure that the pool is large enough to catch and develop most of that talent. Not one that has simply set itself up so that only the most prodigious talent gets a shot.

 

[grecian]

Meh, can't be bothered to read most of the last post, but in the end everything goes back to coaching at a young level, because there's not a basis of kids playing themselves nowadays.

#grandpa Simpson mode# there's a park that I can see from my flat, and that when I was a kid was a five minute walk (yeah I've moved miles in my cosmopolitan life), it used to have about fifty football matches going on in holidays and weekends, constantly, rough and tumble, but proper football being played by everyone because the space was restricted and you needed to keep control and play, I walk across the same field now and you'll be lucky if you get one miserly match going on, because in the end back then we had no other option to stave us from boredom. Now kids have many ways of passing the time, so we need to utilise the best with great coaching, yet we do the opposite. We're not in the same League as apposite nations.

Stop blaming foreigners and start working on creating young stars of our own.

 

[Furball]

I actually think the decline up here goes back to the decline of school football.

 

[sledger]

I think we all welcome the Ozils and the van Persies to our game as they're world class performers who improve the overall quality of the product and, frankly, we don't have any home-reared cattle of a similar ilk.

It gets cloudier when one looks at the levels below world class; here there is a real argument to be made that cheaper foreign imports do block English players. Look at Richard (sic) Lambert; he's only three games in to his second ever top flight season at the age of thirty one and looks, at worst, a serviceable performer.

Certainly better than hacks like (with an Arsenal hat on) Wreh, Boa Morte and Aliadiere, who all got cracks (and in Boa Morte's and Aliadiere's cases with more than one club too) despite being faintly shyte. Presumably mainly 'cos they were cheap.

To be fair though, how many genuinely world class foreign players are there in the Premiership, that were genuinely world class when they arrived? Not all that many by my count, so whilst we might love having the great foreign talents around, it's probably best that we acknowledge that the majority of them only rose to prominence whilst playing in England. Perhaps that is the price we have to pay for producing fairly mediocre talent of our own, or perhaps it isn't.

A word in Arsenal's defence too: despite the fact that they have obviously failed with a lot of foreign youngsters, they've given chances to loads of British youngsters too, the majority of whom have also failed to make the grade (e.g. Bentley, Garry, Pennant, Hoyte x 2, Stack, Thomas, Jeffers). There are also those who have made the grade as well of course (e.g. Wilshere, Gibbs, Walcott, Chamberlain). I think I read somewhere not long ago that only Man Utd are responsible for training more players who are currently active in the football league.

 

[BoyBrumby]

To be fair though, how many genuinely world class foreign players are there in the Premiership, that were genuinely world class when they arrived? Not all that many by my count, so whilst we might love having the great foreign talents around, it's probably best that we acknowledge that the majority of them only rose to prominence whilst playing in England. Perhaps that is the price we have to pay for producing fairly mediocre talent of our own, or perhaps it isn't.

A word in Arsenal's defence too: despite the fact that they have obviously failed with a lot of foreign youngsters, they've given chances to loads of British youngsters too, the majority of whom have also failed to make the grade (e.g. Bentley, Garry, Pennant, Hoyte x 2, Stack, Thomas, Jeffers). There are also those who have made the grade as well of course (e.g. Wilshere, Gibbs, Walcott, Chamberlain). I think I read somewhere not long ago that only Man Utd are responsible for training more players who are currently active in the football league.

It's an interesting one, actually.

Not that many. Ronaldo, RvP, van Nistelrooy & Henry all definitely became world class after arrival.

I'd say the majority who were world class on arrival were probably just on the way down: Gullit, Zola (although yer Chavs got a good half dozen years from him), Vialli & Weah were all into their 30s when they came.

Let's think: Bergkamp, Shevchenko, Ballack, Ozil... Struggling after them, tbh.

EDIT: Aguero too

 

[sledger]

Others who were supposedly at the peak of their powers when they arrived also bombed pretty terribly too. E.g. Veron.

 

[Pothas]

Was about to say Veron, Robinho another example.

Veron was a great player though, in full agreement with Ferguson on that one.

We have seen a lot of proven talent (if not highest level) arrive in recent years though, just look at this summer with Soldado, Navas, Negredo etc and Cazorla last year. The drain from Spain to the Premiership is definetly going to continue for the next few years.

 

[sledger]

Tevez another worth mentioning.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Others who were supposedly at the peak of their powers when they arrived also bombed pretty terribly too. E.g. Veron.

Yeah, fair call. Had completely forgotten him. I mean, fat Andy was pish for the Chavs too, but was undeniably world class when he came.

Guess one could argue Davor Suker was another of the "world class but old" brigade. Was mediocre for us at best. Remember him most for missing that pen in the Wafer final shoot out.

 

[Pothas]

Still came straight over from South America though didn't he? Although had already made an impression at a World Cup.

How weird was him and Mascherano going to West Ham? Mascherano did not even get in the team for christ sake.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Still came straight over from South America though didn't he? Although had already made an impression at a World Cup.

How weird was him and Mascherano going to West Ham? Mascherano did not even get in the team for christ sake.

Yeah, would def put Tevez & Masch in the "became world class after arrival" category. Alonso and Torres too.

 

[sledger]

Still came straight over from South America though didn't he? Although had already made an impression at a World Cup.

How weird was him and Mascherano going to West Ham? Mascherano did not even get in the team for christ sake.

Yeah, the way the Mascherano situation panned out was really bizarre. He seemed like the exact kind of player you would want in a relegation scrap. The way he was left out of the Wham team gave the impression that perhaps he hadn't adjusted well to the Premiership, but the fact that he then hopped across to Liverpool and immediately looked good suggests that wasn't the case. The whole thing was dead dodgy in any case, had forgotten about that court case with Sheffield Utd and all that business with agents.

 

[Cabinet96]

Meh, there are loads of brilliant foreigners that have come over. Whether or not they become world class before or after they hit the premier league is redundant in a lot of cases as many of them were youth prodigies who everyone thought would come good.

 

[sledger]

Yeah, would def put Tevez & Masch in the "became world class after arrival" category. Alonso and Torres too.

There's defo a case for putting Suarez into that category as well. He had a good reputation and all, but that was largely built on dismantling teams in the Eredivisie.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah, although players like Torres, Aguero and Ronaldo all came with pretty big expectations.

Yaya Toure perhaps?

 

[Cabinet96]

Yeah, although players like Torres, Aguero and Ronaldo all came with pretty big expectations.

Yaya Toure perhaps?

David Silva too.

 

[sledger]

Meh, there are loads of brilliant foreigners that have come over. Whether or not they become world class before or after they hit the premier league is redundant in a lot of cases as many of them were youth prodigies who everyone thought would come good.

To some extent it might well be irrelevant, but it's interesting to mull over, because there are doubtless those out there who moan about a lack of English youngsters etc... but who are only too glad to have the league enriched by genuine world class foreign talents. Which is difficult to reconcile with the fact that essentially a lot of the 'foreign' talents are reared here.

 

[Pothas]

To some extent it might well be irrelevant, but it's interesting to mull over, because there are doubtless those out there who moan about a lack of English youngsters etc... but who are only too glad to have the league enriched by genuine world class foreign talents. Which is difficult to reconcile with the fact that essentially a lot of the 'foreign' talents are reared here.

Yeah and lets not forget that a good deal of the 'next great talents' never amount to anything special but will hang around the fringes of top sides for a number of years.

Spanish and Italian clubs buy young South Americans by the bucket load though, so not like it only happens in England.

 

[sledger]

In general, I'm inclined to think the blame it on the foreigners routine is nothing but a lazy excuse which papers over the cracks of decades of crap coaching and institutional negligence. It is totally disingenuous to pretend that the only difference between the English and German national sides (since all the cretins seem to insist on making this comparison whenever this debate comes up, and then go on to wax philosophical about 1966), and their respective qualities, is a disparity between the number of foreign imports in their domestic leagues. The problems in the England side stem far deeper than that.

After Euro 2000 Germany totally ripped out all of their training programs etc... at the youth and grassroots levels, and came up with more modern regimes which encouraged technical proficiency. England, despite having a similarly ****house tournament, and to all intents and purposes being just as bad a side, has taken until now to even start to consider doing such a thing. It's just nonsense. This should be the first port of call when looking for deep-rooted problems.

When I was a lad, youth football was dominated by Tony Pulis-style "kick it and run, Land of Hope and Glory, get stuck in, 4-4-2" coaches. If this is still the same, and I see no evidence to suggest anything to the contrary, it's no wonder that England continue to produce footballers who are all engine and no skill. I don't at all rate Brendan Rodgers, but at least he appears to encourage an attractive style of play which encourages the development of decent core footballing techniques. I'm not sure I can think of many other British coaches, old or young, who operate under a similar ethos. No idea what this is like in the lower leagues, but until more people attempt to do this, it's not looking good.