If the England national football team isn't a compelling argument for limiting the number of non-England qualified players in
every Premier League team....what could be?

The only way it will happen is if we pull out of the EU. Anyone know how we can do that?

Quoted from Grantham_Mariner

The only way it will happen is if we pull out of the EU. Anyone know how we can do that?

Those that are being to do it haven't got a f***ing clue so you've no hope here!

It's not just the players that want to fk off but the foreign owners,foreign managers and foreign experts on TV but it will never happen because all anybody thinks about is how much they get out of it-not love of the game

I remember the England glory days of 74, 78, 82, 88 and 92 etc when there was no foreigns.

Millions of reasons why we arent good enough.....grass root to the top.  

Kids at the youngest of ages are programmed into a winning mentality at junior level, managers of kids at 5/6/7 yr old are obsessed with winning, which usually means the bigger, stronger, faster kids prevail and subsequently stand out. Winning takes preference over development of ability.

At the top...Premiership and Champions League prevail, clubs are money driven, petrified to drop out of those two competitions so chancing bringing in younger players to develop and bring on is seen as too risky.

The selling off of school playing fields for development has lost us at least 2 generations of potential players . How many kids with a natural talent never even realised it ?

The only way you’ll limit the foreigners is to stop pimping the TV rights across the world.

If the TV money is coming in the Carlos Kickabouts wil follow.

Listen  ;)

If Town can not even bring a youth through the ranks and become a regular in the 1st team,


What chance  have any young lad got at bigger clubs who just go out and spend silly money on a player when they want one today !!!!!  not in 3 or 4 years time.

Oh for the days of Wainman,Boylen, K+ D Moore, B Cumming, P. Wilkinson, K Drinkell, G Lund
T Ford ect ect

It would be nice if one could make it now and again maybe Clifton and Wright might make it.

Well if you can't chuck some youth in when you're a bang average league 2 side, then you never will.  Blood a couple  of young lads and build for the future.

Just suppose Rupert Murdoch had developed Sky in France instead of here, the French premier league would now be awash with money, buying all the available talent. How many current British players would be over there and would the England team be better without all the foreigners over here?

You might want to look up the ownership of PSG and Monaco.

Before the PL all the top players were going to Italy including some British players. The national team was better for it

Quoted from Vance Warner

Before the PL all the top players were going to Italy including some British players. The national team was better for it

Two is some. Luther Blisset. Errrrrrm Ian 'It's like a foreign country over there' Rush.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Two is some. Luther Blisset. Errrrrrm Ian 'It's like a foreign country over there' Rush.

Beckham,bliss et, platt, Micah Richards, Des walker, Ashley Cole, Trevor Francis, ride out, gazza,Paul ince and more proves you wrong.
A massive problem with the prem is that it gets great and average foreign players, but the home grown lads are so well paid that there is no need for them to move abroad and broaden their education. They stick on loans to lower English leagues and reserve team football on their massive wages, whereas it would be far better for us and them to be playing regularly in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium Spain and Italy etc

Agree with your last point but there weren't many Brits playing abroad. That lot you listed were spread over years from the 80s to the noughties. A mere trickle.

Germany seems to have got it right bigger crowds as well.

The problem, IMHO, isn't foreign players/managers/coaches etc or playing fields/grass roots, the issue is far more widespread it is primarily one of attitude prevelant in society as a whole.

Kids are spoilt, adults are pampered by modern day society, we have soooooo much we don't need whether it be food, choice, or material things. There isn't the real desire simply because there doesn't need to be!

We have all contributed to creating this monster and football is no different

Quoted from Cloudy

The problem, IMHO, isn't foreign players/managers/coaches etc or playing fields/grass roots, the issue is far more widespread it is primarily one of attitude prevelant in society as a whole.

Kids are spoilt, adults are pampered by modern day society, we have soooooo much we don't need whether it be food, choice, or material things. There isn't the real desire simply because there doesn't need to be!

We have all contributed to creating this monster and football is no different

speak for yourself, there are still plenty of people in Britain who dont.  Potential future England players could be playing football in Grant Thorold Park this morning , dribbling a flat football around dog shite or kicking a tennis ball around a garage block or down an eight foot....they dont get the opportunity as their parents dont have the £3 or the will/effort to take them to a junior set up.  

These arguments are all fair and well but our Under 20swon the WC this year and the U21s got to the semis of the Euros. The first team are shite, but there's clearly talent coming through.

When we was kids from an early age we used to go to our local school fields and play football all day at weekends and after school ect.
Sometimes there would be some old blokes ( people in their 20sand 30s) and we'd give them a game too .

Now a days all schools fields are locked up and fenced off and anyone playing football with kids would be arrested as Peados.

Young kids  don't have the freedom to leave their house that we did in the 70s and 80s ect , Being taken to some coaching set up once a week and paying £3 is not going to produce a world class player

We have a larger, more diverse population then at any time in our history. I cannot accept that less "naturally"  talented players are born in the modern day.

Therefore you have to look at the differences that are now in place to previous generations, a number of these have been covered above including:
- computer games
- alleged safety issues so kids not allowed as much freedom
- demise of school football replaced with organised youth football, best players to best teams etc.
- the nearly total disbandonment of local mens football
- need for instant success influences by likes of talksport, radio 5 live and social media
- the academy and local professional approach to being affiliated to a club which more often then not requires hours of trave, frequent attendance during week and weekends and a ban on playing with your mates.

Currently, there is no evidence that increased levels of coaching from a young age produces "better quality" footballers, more organised and professional, yes.

This may change at national level given success of all age groups below the national team but this will only surely happen if those kids get a chance. I believe the two most successful clubs in the professional ranks, clearing up most youth trophies, are Chelsea & Man City, neither renowned for bringing through their young talent. Indeed heard Craig Bellamy state that Man City run their academy solely as a business and in this summer player sales through this system brought in £75m.

Clubs have to be stopped buying up all the young talent and loaning out 20 or 30 plus players to try and pick off the cream.

The clock can never be turned back but my era played because we loved playing and so do kids today. The incredible growth of youth football has seen the rise of many aspiring Mourinhos who start to take that enjoyment away. I accept youth football has many well meaning and dedicated people who do a great job but a system that has players travelling county wide to often get beat by double figures from the age of 6 upwards, is not IMO, helping the development of these kids. I believe football at younger ages should be developed via the schools, removing attracting all best players to two or three clubs, and local youth football should probably kick in around under 13 age.

In our day this did not exist and at 14 you started playing mens football on Saturday and Sunday with a number of these players going on to having professional careers, locally here John Ward, Dean Crombie and Gary Crosby all were recruited from local football, with Dean going straight from Lincs League to Lincoln's first team within a couple of weeks.

It's a mixed bag of reasons why we aren't at the front at the game we gave to the world. Greedy players taking far more than they are worth in every league which results in less speculation from clubs for coaching and developing kids from an early age.

Some kids either think they know it all or won't play when the weather gets tough. I remember practicing diving headers in the snow at Sidney park when I was a kid.

Parents and kid football managers badgering the kids to win as others have said, I managed a kids footy team when my lad was young and everybody regardless of ability got equal game time, we finished 4th out of 8 in our league, the kids loved it, one or two parents whose kids were star players weren't too happy but in the end they said their kid loved being part of the team.

I also refereed a few games and had to tell managers and parents alike to get off the pitch, a couple of games I had to stop the game until the manager and parents got off the pitch.

It's not just football but sport in total, it's about time that leisure facilities were opened up for free, so budget doesn't come into it. Swimming for example can help kids develop strength in a low impact way, also increasing lung capacity.

The fun in football has been sucked out at all levels, we need a major over haul and a fresh look to bring back success and excitement in the sport we treasure so dearly.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

We have a larger, more diverse population then at any time in our history. I cannot accept that less "naturally"  talented players are born in the modern day.

Therefore you have to look at the differences that are now in place to previous generations, a number of these have been covered above including:
- computer games
- alleged safety issues so kids not allowed as much freedom
- demise of school football replaced with organised youth football, best players to best teams etc.
- the nearly total disbandonment of local mens football
- need for instant success influences by likes of talksport, radio 5 live and social media
- the academy and local professional approach to being affiliated to a club which more often then not requires hours of trave, frequent attendance during week and weekends and a ban on playing with your mates.

Currently, there is no evidence that increased levels of coaching from a young age produces "better quality" footballers, more organised and professional, yes.

This may change at national level given success of all age groups below the national team but this will only surely happen if those kids get a chance. I believe the two most successful clubs in the professional ranks, clearing up most youth trophies, are Chelsea & Man City, neither renowned for bringing through their young talent. Indeed heard Craig Bellamy state that Man City run their academy solely as a business and in this summer player sales through this system brought in £75m.

Clubs have to be stopped buying up all the young talent and loaning out 20 or 30 plus players to try and pick off the cream.

The clock can never be turned back but my era played because we loved playing and so do kids today. The incredible growth of youth football has seen the rise of many aspiring Mourinhos who start to take that enjoyment away. I accept youth football has many well meaning and dedicated people who do a great job but a system that has players travelling county wide to often get beat by double figures from the age of 6 upwards, is not IMO, helping the development of these kids. I believe football at younger ages should be developed via the schools, removing attracting all best players to two or three clubs, and local youth football should probably kick in around under 13 age.

In our day this did not exist and at 14 you started playing mens football on Saturday and Sunday with a number of these players going on to having professional careers, locally here John Ward, Dean Crombie and Gary Crosby all were recruited from local football, with Dean going straight from Lincs League to Lincoln's first team within a couple of weeks.

Add to that over coaching of youngsters when "just go out and enjoy yourself will do". Last week at BP I noticed that the Gimps made a change and Nicky Cowley spent 5 minutes talking the player through some paper details and diagram's details in a clip file. If  a player at that level needs that kind of instruction there is no wonder the England team look paralyzed by fear and lack any form of creativity.

Just wondering but why is there only Ozil, there might be others I don't know about, from Germany playing over here, surely we can match their wages, as we all know there national team will always make the semis of any tournament they enter.so why don't the premier clubs sign Germans.

Good point Gaffer. And of the big countries Germany has the closest style to the British approach of power and athleticism. They're just better at it.

Or maybe that's why? Too close and/but not giving us enough to cope with the Latin teams.

I'm guessing most play for Bayern, who are bigger than any english club, bar Man U. (There's also Can, Sane, Mustafi and Rudiger)

Mertesacker, Podolski and Jerome Boateng have all been in the Prem whilst playing for the German National team.

I bow to those that know their Germans, after some chap called Adolf I struggled.

He was Austrian!

The Norwegian National Football team have been dreadful for years now.
I have suggested that we should do as France.
Hand out citizenships to a couple of thousand young families from the Ivory Coast with the condition that their kids will be encouraged to play football at home.
Wait some years for results and Presto! We would have a great National team. :-)

Our other option would be to claim Iceland as our territory and risk a war with Denmark. If successful, we could dress the Icelandic team in our colours and Presto! You know the rest...

Yes. We are desperate.

Quoted from geir

The Norwegian National Football team have been dreadful for years now.
I have suggested that we should do as France.
Hand out citizenships to a couple of thousand young families from the Ivory Coast with the condition that their kids will be encouraged to play football at home.
Wait some years for results and Presto! We would have a great National team. :-)

Our other option would be to claim Iceland as our territory and risk a war with Denmark. If successful, we could dress the Icelandic team in our colours and Presto! You know the rest...

Yes. We are desperate.

I would advise against claiming any Icelandic territory, they tend to get upset if anyone gets any closer than 200 miles from their shores especially if your in a long boat with a big net behind it.

Quoted from Abdul19

I remember the England glory days of 74, 78, 82, 88 and 92 etc when there was no foreigns.

Fair point and nicely made Abdul.

Those glory days were when we had a rather backward idea about how the game should be played, and clueless England managers
(Matt Le Tissier earned 8 caps because he didn't run around enough - the fact that he could score goals no team could prevent
being considered less important).

The point is there were many choices then....now if Kane, Rashford & Sturridge were to get injured who leads the attack?

I'm not one who thinks "if we get rid of the foreign players everything will be hunky-dory".....the game has been taken over by business
people & is being run as a business to suck as much money as possible out of the fans .

Football is now a business not a sport - and that's the root of its problems.