England vs Croatia

 

Arsenal & Man Utd are 1 and 2 in the EPL right now (and by some margin on current form).  Can someone remind me which players from these top two clubs fronted up for England this morning (notwithstanding that injury prevented Rooney from being there)?  Not a sausage (in the starting XI) is my understanding.

 

All this leads me to strongly suspect that foreign player restrictions on English teams might emerge from the inevitable inquest.   I think that would be a good thing.  While this may result in a slight standard drop for the EPL, the game may just be returned to the people.  A bit.  Maybe I am just an old fart, but the great old clubs of London, Midlands, North East and North West seem to have lost their charm and be so much more distanced from their communities than before.  While the prawn sandwich set continue to fill the corporate boxes and 50+ quid seats at the big clubs, it just doesn't seem sustainable - and certainly not for the 2nd and 3rd tier in the EPL.

 

Maybe they'll also start thinking about standing areas and lower entrance fees and other innovations to make it affordable for the real folk  (it works in Germany, where average attendances are higher than the UK)

 

Maybe there will be some good come out of it for the game in England .  Just a thought.

 

More TV coverage in NZ?  OK I'm clutching at straws now.

 

If ever there was an argument for limiting the number of foreign nationals to be in a playing 11 at any one time, this game was the deciding one.  There was a time when we all thought that 'foreign players" would add a new dimension and that English players would learn but now there's so many, the English ones are not getting the chance to learn on the field.

 

No

 

 

It's always easy to blame it on things like to many foreign players, when we all know deep down that there is only one reason for these results...The English are sh*te.

 

On a more serious note, alot of foreign players in the EPL has not hindered the growth of talented english footballers coming up through the ranks. To me, It has  helped seperate the good players from the crap ones. And you can see that by the young english players coming up. Like...Walcott aged 18, James Milner aged 21, Agbonlahor aged 21, Cattermole 19 and Michael Johnson 19. That's just to name a few of good young english players coming up.

 

England has always had alot of great players, just can't seem to get things together.

England the All Blacks of football.

 

 

 

 

 

Says it all really...

 

Actually a bit of a misinterpretation of my post.  I'm not an an England fan, quite the opposite.  The post did not "blame" Englands poor performance on foreigners - but noted that the inevitable post-mortem might result in a foreigner restriction in UK.  And that might not be such a bad thing - not because it would result in a better England team - I don't know and I don't care, but because it might result in the Premier League being slightly more representative of the country that hosts it, and return the game to the fans a tad.  We have seen this unfortunate trend here in rugby here where All Black matches are less affordable (or even accessable) to the grassroots folk of Porirua and Wainui yet the stadiums are still filled by the corporate noters and the like.  In the UK I sense a similar alienation of the grand old clubs from their traditional support base (not helped by teams full of Frenchmen, Spaniards and the like).  And I find the Premier League harder to get excited about than before - quality is excellent, but these aren't the same clubs of their region and the team with the most money will probably win ... again. 

 

So more an observation (pipedream?) about the potential for a slightly less surreal/circus-like league competiton to recommence in the UK.  Not about the solution for the England national team.  I wouldn't care less if they never made another World Cup semi final again - 2 is quite enough!  And that fact, I'm never quite sure qualifies as a comedy  or a tragedy .

All other european countries send professional players into top foreign leagues..(germany italy spain france england) yet england does not. and their players do not make it in most premiership sides.Therefore why do they not send their players into mainland europe? Owen and Beckham failed in spain, would this happen to other english players if they made the same move?

Croatia only has 3 or 4 players in the premier league most of them play in germany russia ukraine and croatia yet they beat england.Just shows you that the team with more determination can beat out a higher paid and so called "better" side.