Just Suppose

[yorkleyblue]

In an interview with GianFranco in the Telegraph today he said that one of the major contributory factors in the high times of Italian football in the late 80's and early 90's was that they were restricted to only 3 foreign players in each Serie A team

Just suppose that the EPL imposed such a restriction on English teams for next season.

Which three foreign players in the CURRENT Chelsea squad would you keep, and why?

My gut feeling is that most people would have very little hesitation in picking the same three, but I could just be making very silly assumptions.

My three are

Cech - greatest goalkeeper in the world IMO, and brings enormous stability and confidence to our defence

Essien - Just immense in every position he plays, and becoming a vital part of our midfield (2 years ago it would have been Maka)

Drogs - Golden Boot, great spirit, stirring team leader, work-rate to match anyone and great in defence too.

Kev

[Scott]

L'Arse would have to fold up camp.

[BLUENUT]

Saw a stat on SKY news last night, English PL is made up of 56% foreigners the Seria A is 26% foreign.

World cup and Champions league winners - Italian, theres something to learn from!

[g3.7]

I'd take cech and essien, but the third I'm not sure... I'd want a long term player, and I'd probably want a creative player, given the lack of creative players in britain. maybe robben

rooney would also become a big transfer target, surely.

[loz]

Cech and Essien are the no brainers.

I think I would opt for Drogba as the third maybe only because of the English alternatives. What I meanis that in making the decision you have to factorin that your replacements for the players you don't keep have to be English and the English striking options do not impressme much at the moment. If there was more striking options available that were English I would have been tempted to keep the JT/Carvalho combination at the back or keep Mikel because his long term future is going to be stunning.

In fact I am still tempted to say Mikel.

[BLUENUT]

rooney would also become a big transfer target, surely.

So would Joe Cole, John Terry, Lampard, A Cole, Bridge, and we might get some money beck on SWP

[The Moos]

I think I'd take Cech, Essien and Mikel.

"What, not Drogs?!" you might say. Yes, no Drogs. Don't get me wrong, he's one of my favourites and I think he's probably the best player in the world at the moment.

But he's 29 years old and I'd go for someone younger and seing as Mikel has played brilliant lately and he's only 20 years old I'd go for him.

Cech isn't a difficult choice because frankly England doesn't have many good (if any) keepers. So Cech is a must.

Essien is Essien. A player who can be brilliant wherever you put him on the pitch. You don't find many of those around nowadays. So I'd keep him.

I think it is a good idea to limit the number of foreign players but I'm not so sure if 3 in the entire squad is good. I'd say that 5-7 is a bit better but you are only allowed to use 3 in a game. That would atleast force teams to field 8 English players in every game and that is good enough for me.