There is too much emphasis put on buying and playing foreign players, whereas we already have some decent young English players. Look at Man Utd, they have always had at least 5 (sometimes less, but this is a estimated number) English players as first choice. I would just like to see more English players in our team.

 

If you look at top sides in Europe like Real, Barca, Bayern, Juve, Milan etc, they all have home grown talent or at least buy players of the same nationality. Also, English players are willing to give more to the team than a foreign player would, in my opinion. There are exceptions to that, such as Juan Mata, Petr Cech, Ferreira and Ivanovic, but overrall, how many foreign players that we have at the moment do you think will be here in 10 years? I don't think many, if any will be. 

 

I wish we'd stop giving our English players away to other PL sides and instead give them a chance ahead of some of the foreign players. We usually end up selling them on, only for them to do well with another English club. 

 

Anyway, Rant(ish) over. What are your thoughts on this? 

Unless we bring through english players then it doesnt make good business sense. Enlgish players cost too much. Take Bale for example. It would cost us 70 odd million to buy him. We could go and buy a Spanish or Italian player for example for half of that.

Having decent English players gives us a decent team and we're aiming for more than that. Ideally it'd be great if we had some home grown talent, but it's something that requires a level of quality that just hasn't been there. There are prospects like Chalobah coming through who still need a year on loan before they're ready. McEachran most likely won't make it. Loftus-Cheek needs time on loan as well.

 

As Uno above says, English players are expensive, although using a Welsh player is an odd example. English players are generally not that good, either. Look at the national team for an example of that. The players need to be good enough for us to sign them and there aren't any around at the moment, so we have to produce our own, it takes time, but we're getting them closer.

If there were some good, reasonably priced English players I'm sure we'd be looking at them.. but there is a real dearth of quality and value in young English players at the moment. 

Edited June 18, 201313 yr by President_Dan

True, but look at Man Utd over the years. They have always had a decent amount of English players in the first team and they've done incredibly well in all competitions. This year they won the league playing the likes of Welbeck, Rooney, Ferdinand, Carrick, Cleverly, Evans, Young. They have Zaha coming in for next season too. I don't think it can be such a bad thing, can it?

Rooney was 18 and cost 30 millions plus, ferdinand cost 30 million plus. Young was 18 million - hardly a steal  Zaha - unproven at this level 15 million. Evans - isn't english, Carrick had a good season and has proved his price tag to be honest

 

Welbeck and cleverly are the only players that actually come through the youth system and both have shown early promise and if they keep developing can become top players, but thats a big IF. they both need to improve on their last season.

 

We all want top english players to play for us granted. but sometimes your paying an extra 5 - 10 million because of a players nationality and not his ability and the press wonder why English played don't get a chance at top clubs...

No, I agree it is ideal to have a core of English players, but it is just very hard to find quality players at reasonable prices.

Andy Carroll - £35m

 

Rio Ferdinand  - £30m (10 years ago)

 

Wayne Rooney  - £32m (at 18 years of age)

 

Wilfred Zaha  - £15m (never played in the Premier League before)

 

Sean Wright Phillips - £21m (worst of the 4 wingers we had at the time)

 

Joleon Lescott  - £24m

 

Darren Bent £18m (to Spurs, same year Barca bought Henry for £16m)

 

Darren Bent £24m (to Villa)

 

 

Off the top of my head those are transfer I can think of why clubs don't buy English... It's too expensive for the quality of player you are getting. 

True, but look at Man Utd over the years. They have always had a decent amount of English players in the first team and they've done incredibly well in all competitions. This year they won the league playing the likes of Welbeck, Rooney, Ferdinand, Carrick, Cleverly, Evans, Young. They have Zaha coming in for next season too. I don't think it can be such a bad thing, can it?

Yes, they've paid big money to sign the best young English talent, but they've also been in a position to attract those players. Massive fees for the only ones to make it into their first team. We have done similar in the past and we will continue to do so, though.

 

They have Ferdinand, we have Terry, they have Rooney, we have Lampard, instead of Evans we have Bertrand, we have Cole instead of Carrick etc. We even have backup players like they do such as Cahill and Moses (admittedly he chose to play for Nigeria) as backup players, they bought Zaha, but we're bringing the other big English talent from the Championship last season through in Chalobah.

 

I think you're overestimating how many English players they have and underestimating how many we have and are bringing through.

I thought the OP was a wind-up but it is actually a good topic. Don't have time to contribute now and if I did try and rush a response it would only end up being in the wrong font and I don't want to upset folk again!

 

I'll come back to this one but my short answer for now is YES (but it goes without saying, they have to be good enough).

Most are over priced and over hyped.

Unless of course you are John Terry, Ashley Cole or Frank Lampard

I really don't care... as mentioned above as long as the is an element of loyalty and commitment to the club.

 

Maybe I am missing the point a bit but I would take a team containing Zola, Drogba, Cech, Super Dan over most Englishish players in the last 20 years.

When I look at the likes of Jones, Welbeck and Cleverly at Utd I just get the impression they aren't good enough. There is a whole raft of players that'll do a much better job for half the cost.

 

I'm all for bringing English players into the squad if they are good enough but for whatever reason they just don't compare when you look and see what the likes of Belgium are producing.

Having decent English players gives us a decent team and we're aiming for more than that. Ideally it'd be great if we had some home grown talent, but it's something that requires a level of quality that just hasn't been there. There are prospects like Chalobah coming through who still need a year on loan before they're ready. McEachran most likely won't make it. Loftus-Cheek needs time on loan as well.

 

As Uno above says, English players are expensive, although using a Welsh player is an odd example. English players are generally not that good, either. Look at the national team for an example of that. The players need to be good enough for us to sign them and there aren't any around at the moment, so we have to produce our own, it takes time, but we're getting them closer.

 

Thats the main problem as well as the prices.If there good enough and English then great im sure we will be interested for example Luke Shaw.We have bought plenty of English players from Parker,SWP,Bridge,Cahill,A.Cole, J.Cole and Johnson and alot of them were decent players who were overpriced.

I disagree about Jones and Welbeck, both very very good players, Jones if he is developed correctly and given a position instead of being moved all over shop should really be the next Top Top english player. Welbeck isn't going to score 20+ plus goals season after season but he will score, he is more of an attacking player as opposed to a pure out and out striker just there to score goals.

 

Cleverley on the other hand i agree with. Doesn't offer anything special going forward or in defence, he really needs to work on his game if he wants to progress, nowhere near the likes of Frank, Gerrard or scholes.

I'm mainly thinking about the future too. We want loyal players and I don't think half our team will still be with us in 10, or even 5 years. If we are able to bring through at least 2-3 English players a year into the squad, we could build up a team that consists of mainly English players. If Roman is looking to keep Mourinho here past 4 years, we could definitely build up a good, young first team that consists of a good amount of English talent. I think that would be awesome and it would certainly shut up critics of the club. Maybe I'm just trying to be an idealist, but it's something I think the club should be looking towards. 

How about getting more in the youth set up with a view to them actually getting a chance to break into the first team.  Chalobah, and Josh McEachran are a good start. Bertrand is a youngster still and made into the squad.

Unless we bring through english players then it doesnt make good business sense. Enlgish players cost too much. Take Bale for example. It would cost us 70 odd million to buy him. We could go and buy a Spanish or Italian player for example for half of that.

Bale is not English.

Unless we bring through english players then it doesnt make good business sense. Enlgish players cost too much. Take Bale for example. It would cost us 70 odd million to buy him. We could go and buy a Spanish or Italian player for example for half of that.

Bale's not English 

Bale is not English.

Beat me to it! 

We need the new core of the team to be English-born. We've been very lucky to get JT, Frank and Cole. Chalobah we do have but who else?

There is something very wrong in the development of English youngsters compared to Germany for example. I really don't think you can blame the foreign players for that because there are a out a million teams in England and 45 of them are on relatively high level(Prem+Championship). The cream of the youth have enough clubs to get good at.

Beat me to it! 

I think you'll find I beat you both to it with the third post in this thread.

 

I'm mainly thinking about the future too. We want loyal players and I don't think half our team will still be with us in 10, or even 5 years. If we are able to bring through at least 2-3 English players a year into the squad, we could build up a team that consists of mainly English players. If Roman is looking to keep Mourinho here past 4 years, we could definitely build up a good, young first team that consists of a good amount of English talent. I think that would be awesome and it would certainly shut up critics of the club. Maybe I'm just trying to be an idealist, but it's something I think the club should be looking towards. 

 

I don't see this connection between loyalty and being English. Which English players are you suggesting we buy? Can you name 2-3 English players who are good enough to be in our team and we would actually be able to sign at a reasonable price? Our squad currently has Terry, Lampard, Cole, Bertrand, Cahill and Moses (grew up here and has an English passport, but chose to play for Nigeria after England U21 level). We will be bringing Chalobah, Blackman and Loftus-Cheek through, along with no doubt many others in the coming years (Swift perhaps). That to me is a good amount of English talent. It could be better, but that requires the English talent existing and being available and it just isn't.

 

The ones we could possibly sign are Rooney who is likely to be past it now, Walcott in a position we have completely covered, Parker who is terrible. The players just aren't available or good enough. The way we can do it successfully is to bring through youngsters from our youth teams, which I'd much rather see and it will improve the English national side in the process. It takes time, patience and to an extent stability, but we're getting there on all fronts. We've learnt from the mistakes we made with McEachran and are being a lot more successful with Chalobah so far. Bertrand is another success story, even if he'll never make it as a first choice, he's versatile and very solid when called upon.

 

The foreign players you say aren't loyal enough, I can see being here if we remain successful, which is what our aim should be anyway. If we sign English players purely because they're English, I can see us losing that success because the majority just won't improve our team in any way.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but Bale is not English.

If they're good enough, they're english enough.

Perhaps we should build a team around James Milner, just like Woy Hodgson is doing.