Your All-time Premier League XI

[GIMH]

That four foreigner rule used to really hit United in Europe. Obviously it applied in the league too but the difference being in domestic games that British players didn't count as foreign whereas in Europe they did. Given mainstays of Cantona's early years at United were the likes of Hughes and Irwin, and obviously you had Schmeichel in goal, its easy to see why the likes of Beckham and Scholes got blooded early

Can't believe I forgot Giggs when racking my brains for the non-English British/NI

 

[Furball]

Can't believe I forgot Giggs when racking my brains for the non-English British/NI

I'm pretty sure the team only had about 3 or 4 English players in it.

Schmeichel (Denmark)

Parker (England)
Irwin (Ireland)
Pallister (England)
Bruce (England)

Kanchelskis (Russia)
Keane (Ireland)
Ince (England)
Giggs (Wales)

Cantona (France)
Hughes (Wales)

Is how I remember classic, early Prem Manchester United. Brian McClair, who is Scottish, also played a decent amount of games at the time, which is another non-English player.

 

[GIMH]

Did ROI players count as foreigners in the Prem? Can't remember at all

 

[Uppercut]

I didn't know Scottish, Welsh, and Irish players were excluded. I thought the foreigner rule affected every country more or less similarly, but that puts English clubs at a big disadvantage.

I might need to rethink my whole opinion of the quality of the Prem in the early 90s. The sides they put out that were underperforming in Europe would have been missing a lot of key players at a time when squads didn't have much depth.

 

[GIMH]

I didn't know Scottish, Welsh, and Irish players were excluded. I thought the foreigner rule affected every country more or less similarly, but that puts English clubs at a big disadvantage.

I might need to rethink my whole opinion of the quality of the Prem in the early 90s. The sides they put out that were underperforming in Europe would have been missing a lot of key players at a time when squads didn't have much depth.

Yep. And I would say it probably hit United harder than most.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

It made Europe a farce. One match in Barcelona he left out Schmeichel and they lost 4-0.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'd more or less completely forgotten about that rule, probably because (slightly ironically given our future reliance on non-native players) it didn't affect the Arse overly.

Anders Limpar was our only quote-unquote "real" foreigner of any significance in the early-mid 90s and then we had Stefan Schwarz for a season after Graham punted Limpar to the Toffees.

We had Hartson, Dickov, McGoldrick and Morrow knocking around the squad, but none was ever really a regular for long.

 

[Tom Halsey]

I might need to rethink my whole opinion of the quality of the Prem in the early 90s. The sides they put out that were underperforming in Europe would have been missing a lot of key players at a time when squads didn't have much depth.

Yeah European performance would be a pretty poor barometer of the strength of the Prem in the early-mid 90s for this reason IMO. It's probably no coincidence that the first season we played in the CL after the rule was done away with was (the 96/97 season I alluded to earlier) we reached the semis - and while it contained the nucleus of the later Treble side I don't think it can really be said that by 96/97 they were as good as the 93/94 side Furball listed above. It is also probably no coincidence that the English side with by far the best European record in the mid-90s was Arsenal despite underwhelming league showings - and as Brumby says they were probably the least affected by the rule.

 

[sledger]

Did ROI players count as foreigners in the Prem? Can't remember at all

Haha loads ROI players from the 90s and 2000s were born in England anwyay, so I'd guess probably not.

 

[Furball]

I didn't know Scottish, Welsh, and Irish players were excluded. I thought the foreigner rule affected every country more or less similarly, but that puts English clubs at a big disadvantage.

I might need to rethink my whole opinion of the quality of the Prem in the early 90s. The sides they put out that were underperforming in Europe would have been missing a lot of key players at a time when squads didn't have much depth.

It affected us massively when Souness was manager; in his final season we had Woods, Stevens, Steven, Hurlock, Spackman, Walters and Hateley who were all regulars and English, as well as Butcher while we were still in Europe.

 

[Furball]

I didn't know Scottish, Welsh, and Irish players were excluded. I thought the foreigner rule affected every country more or less similarly, but that puts English clubs at a big disadvantage.

I might need to rethink my whole opinion of the quality of the Prem in the early 90s. The sides they put out that were underperforming in Europe would have been missing a lot of key players at a time when squads didn't have much depth.

The early 90s European performances also have to be judged in the context of the Heysel ban; English clubs were only just getting back into the swing of Europe (pretty sure Arsenal in 1991/92 were the first English representatives in the Champions Cup since Heysel) and arguably without some of the best English players actually playing in England (the late 80s and early 90s saw quite an exodus of players away from England; Rangers were the most represented club in England's Italia 90 squad and you had the likes of Gascoigne and Platt spending the bulk of the early 90s playing in Italy.)

edit: actually this might not as big a problem as I first thought; England's Euro 92 squad of 20 only had Platt (Italy) and Steven (France via 2 years in Scotland) who didn't play in England. It's a ****ing terrible squad though.

 

[wpdavid]

The early 90s European performances also have to be judged in the context of the Heysel ban; English clubs were only just getting back into the swing of Europe (pretty sure Arsenal in 1991/92 were the first English representatives in the Champions Cup since Heysel) and arguably without some of the best English players actually playing in England (the late 80s and early 90s saw quite an exodus of players away from England; Rangers were the most represented club in England's Italia 90 squad and you had the likes of Gascoigne and Platt spending the bulk of the early 90s playing in Italy.)

edit: actually this might not as big a problem as I first thought; England's Euro 92 squad of 20 only had Platt (Italy) and Steven (France via 2 years in Scotland) who didn't play in England. It's a ****ing terrible squad though.

That's impressively remembered about Arsenal in 1991/92. They lost in the 2nd round to Benifica, about which I recall absolutely nothing.
I remember more about Leeds' exploits the following year, when they got through against Stuttgart because the Germans played an ineligible player and were then well beaten by your boys in the second round. And then we had Man Utd's loss in the 2nd round to Galatasary the following year and, I think, being walloped by Barcelona the year after before losing badly in Gothenberg. My abiding memory from that match is the look of astonishment on Ince's face when being given a red card for doing what he habitually got away with in the Prem. Not good, but still not as unimpressive as Blackburn the year after. Was that when two of their players got into a fight? Maybe Batty and Le Saux, but I'm struggling now. You're dead right about our clubs' performances suffering because of the Heysel ban. Europe may as well have been a different planet to most of them. It seems odd as we'd absolutely dominated Europe in the years before Heysel, and it wasn't just Liverpool. But those six years in isolation meant we'd forgotten everything that Liverpool had taught us in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

EDIT
I just looked at the 1992 Euros squad, and you're not wrong about how terrible it was. The better players were past their best, apart from Shearer who was very new to international football. I suppose Gascoigne was still injured and, for reasons best known to himself, Taylor decided not to take Waddle; presumably he thought that Sinton and Daley were better. But the sheer mediocrity of many of the players in that squad is astonishing. Rocastle and Wright also seem unlucky not to have been picked, but maybe Taylor just didn't like Arsenal very much.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

That's impressively remembered about Arsenal in 1991/92. They lost in the 2nd round to Benifica, about which I recall absolutely nothing.

I remember the Benfica captain describing Arsenal as a “biff bang rugby team”.

 

[BoyBrumby]

That's impressively remembered about Arsenal in 1991/92. They lost in the 2nd round to Benifica, about which I recall absolutely nothing.

Was quite the choke, actually.

We drew 1-1 over there so didn't even need to win at Highbury in the return.

Colin Pates (jobbing centre half we signed from Charlton, I think) scored from a corner early on, but Benfica equalised before half time and we didn't really create much in the second.

They then scored two in extra time, so that was all she wrote. Ran out of gas.

 

[GIMH]

The early 90s European performances also have to be judged in the context of the Heysel ban; English clubs were only just getting back into the swing of Europe (pretty sure Arsenal in 1991/92 were the first English representatives in the Champions Cup since Heysel) and arguably without some of the best English players actually playing in England (the late 80s and early 90s saw quite an exodus of players away from England; Rangers were the most represented club in England's Italia 90 squad and you had the likes of Gascoigne and Platt spending the bulk of the early 90s playing in Italy.)

edit: actually this might not as big a problem as I first thought; England's Euro 92 squad of 20 only had Platt (Italy) and Steven (France via 2 years in Scotland) who didn't play in England. It's a ****ing terrible squad though.

Yeah I think English clubs were allowed back in 90/91, and United won the CWC at the first time of asking but Liverpool got an extra year's ban and they were the champions in 90.

Would be interested in the views of those a decade or so older than me on the ban. To me it seems an outrage; not to downplay Heysel or indeed the problem of hooliganism we had in the game back then. But still.

 

[BoyBrumby]

We undoubtedly had a problem (football hooliganism is one of at least half a dozen things those beastly foreign johnnies call "the English disease" along with homosexuality, rickets, beating one's children, depression and trade union militancy) but there was a bit of a feeling that the ban was at least in part motivated by our then dominance.

Between 77 & 84 English teams won 7/8 European Cups and, but for the disgraceful decision to go ahead with the 85 final in Heysel and a very dodgy penalty awarded to Juve, it could've been 8/9.

Thatcher's government had a contempt for football fans they didn't even try to conceal (fans were very literally caged in grounds) so we got no support there.

 

[grecian]

May have been a bit harsh and bitter from the other European countries, but can see why they didn't want random riots turning up in their fair cities. Heysel, by far not the first incident, I remember West Ham playing behind closed doors, plus various bits of thuggery from all sides really, in the end it did seem to stop, once re-entered, our clubs being too much problem abroad, possibly self-policng amongst fans which depressingly isn't done with English fans.

so maybe it was a good thing, doubt Everton fans think it was though...

 

[wpdavid]

I don't remember a great deal of outrage about the ban. Heysel itself was so shocking that almost any consequence would have felt acceptable. And as grecian said, we had a fair bit of previous. As he also said, Everton fans would have seen things very differently, what with being deprived of a chance of competing in the European Cup due to the thuggery of their nearest and dearest. Depressingly, I've met one or two Liverpool fans who seemed more interested in blaming the admittedly crappy stadium and their treatment at the hands of Roma's supporters 12 months earlier.

Thinking back, England supporters had disgraced themselves at the 1980 Euros, so that would have been an influence. Plus there were the domestic incidents. Millwall at Luton springs to mind, but there were others too. Why on earth would other European countries want to have these people anywhere near them? The Bradford disaster may have influenced attitudes in England as well, not that that had anything to do with hooliganism of course. But there was a sense that English football was in such a sick state that something had to happen to bring us to our senses. I know that last bit probably doesn't look as if it makes sense now, but it felt like part of the narrative then.

Was there an element of jealousy about our success in European competitions? Maybe, but I never felt that was a major factor. Maybe I was wrong though.


EDIT
And maybe it depends on who you're speaking to. So GIMH being surrounded by Liverpool and Everton supporters may have had a very different experience to me in deepest Surrey. Had the Internet happened 15 years sooner, then I'm sure that would have opened my eyes to all sorts of opinions that I wasn't coming across in my everyday life.

 

[Furball]

Yeah I think English clubs were allowed back in 90/91, and United won the CWC at the first time of asking but Liverpool got an extra year's ban and they were the champions in 90.

Would be interested in the views of those a decade or so older than me on the ban. To me it seems an outrage; not to downplay Heysel or indeed the problem of hooliganism we had in the game back then. But still.

I think the scale of Heysel, combined with the repeat offences (English fans basically smashed their way around Europe in the 1980s) justified it. IIRC England fans caused massive trouble at Euro 88, and possibly at the European Championships in 1980 or 1984 as well.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I think the scale of Heysel, combined with the repeat offences (English fans basically smashed their way around Europe in the 1980s) justified it. IIRC England fans caused massive trouble at Euro 88, and possibly at the European Championships in 1980 or 1984 as well.

Didn't qualify in 84, tbf.

Yer Danes beat us 1-0 at Wembley thanks to an Allan Simonsen penalty.