Actually this was just what England needed

[Da Man Clay]

Thats so very very wrong and so knee-jerk you should know better. They care.

Bollocks is it, I never saw one player straining every muscle in their body to win it for England.

 

[fosters headband]

The foreign ones are BETTER though. Surely an influx of foreign talent should have made our footballers MORE competitive, not less. Competition is recognised as a force for good isn't it?

Competiton is good but these clubs dont add the foreign players to their sqauds, they take the place of our youngsters.
So in fact we coach and improve the foreign players.

 

[pasty]

Bollocks is it, I never saw one player straining every muscle in their body to win it for England.

Absolutely. Simply watch the England rugby team for instance during the playing of the National Anthem prior to kick off, then do the same thing with the England football team. One of those teams appear to be proud to be representing their country.

 

[Shizuoka Dolphin]

Least it wasn't the World Cup! Besides, I've got a wedding to go to during the tournament, so it's probably best we didn't qualify.

 

[Da Man Clay]

Absolutely. Simply watch the England rugby team for instance during the playing of the National Anthem prior to kick off, then do the same thing with the England football team. One of those teams appear to be proud to be representing their country.

Indeed. Lack of talent I can forgive, lack of effort and pride and passion I cannot.

 

[Nemesis]

Foreigners are playing instead of the English lads because they are better.

Why is that? It's obviously not a genetic thing so the problem is a very deep one and it's a problem that's been around for a long time.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I don't think it's a knee jerk thing.

We were fortunate to even be in a position to qualify tonight. And I've never identified with the England footballers like I do with the Albion- granted, I wasn't around when we won the World Cup in 1966, but there's been little since to stir the nation's passions.

 

[DJ Leon]

Competiton is good but these clubs dont add the foreign players to their sqauds, they take the place of our youngsters.
So in fact we coach and improve the foreign players.

Yes, but they're not there for any other reason than they're better than our youngsters. So putting a quota on them would imsply take some competition away from the English lads. That can't be healthy.

 

[Da Man Clay]

Yes, but they're not there for any other reason than they're better than our youngsters. So putting a quota on them would imsply take some competition away from the English lads. That can't be healthy.

Why cant it be healthy? Means English talent gets the chance to devolp instead of being sat in the reserves.

 

[fosters headband]

Yes, but they're not there for any other reason than they're better than our youngsters. So putting a quota on them would imsply take some competition away from the English lads. That can't be healthy.

As I stated earlier, the Italian national side was affected a few decades back for exactly what is happening in the premiership.
So they did take the action to limit foreigners and their record since then cannot be questioned.

 

[pasty]

Yes, but they're not there for any other reason than they're better than our youngsters. So putting a quota on them would imsply take some competition away from the English lads. That can't be healthy.

But it is also stopping English players getting big game experience. How many first team games would Theo Walcott have played for Arsenal by now if it wasn't for the amount of johnny foerigeners in the squad ?

 

[blue'n'white]

I can't be the only one who felt a tiny twinge of disappointment when Crouch equalised.

On the one hand, we would have qualified, true. But on the other, we barely deserved to, either in terms of the game or the campaign as a whole, and by that point, I'd resigned myself quite cheerfully to a decent spring cleaning of the whole England set up. McLaren out, Barwick out, the end of the line for a few of the less committed individuals, and a new broom with some more modern ideas than the 1970s influenced Terry Venables plan.

Put it this way, we've almost without exception (1996) been utter crap at the European Championships, therefore this has only served to spare us agony at a later stage (aka losing on penalties to Portugal).

I just cannot identify with the England players in the same way that I do with the Albion. I'm used to the Albion's occasional incompetence, which makes it all the more exciting when they rise above that. I can accept that the Albion have young and inexperienced players, and tolerate their mistakes. What I can't be arsed with is men who get paid more in a week than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom earns in an entire year, arsing about for the sake of it, then swanning off in their Ferraris like they couldn't give a shit when they lose to Croatia (and then complaining that they have to play two games in seven days).

The only players in that squad who seem remotely committed to the cause are Richards, Barry, maybe Crouch, and Gary Neville when he plays. The rest can sod off back to their mock Tudor mansions and wallow in fifty pound notes for the rest of their careers for all I care.

Completely and utterly in agreement.
The big clear out needs to start tomorrow.
My idea - for what it's worth - why do all the England players HAVE to come from the Premiership ? Why can't the England manager take a look at players who are performing well in the Championship and possibly Leagues 1 + 2 and invite them for training camps ? Yes I know all the arguments about them not being good enough to face foreign opposition but what we saw tonight was nowhere near good enough to grace the ruined Wembley pitch. Take the players that are in form - in League 1 that could be Beckford at the mo. They may be good enough but if they ain't given a chance nobody will ever know and if they ARE well that solves a problem. The only player who's played in the last God knows how many years from outside the gilded palace of the bloody Premiership is Nugent. Ok he hasn't exactly covered himself in glory THIS season but he was good enough last year.
We need to have a complete change otherwise we are heading for the third world in football terms nationally and how ironic is that given that we keep on having it rammed down our throats about how bloody wionderful the Premiership is supposed to be and how it's "the best league in the world". There are too many foreign imports and it's too much of a rest home for foreign high wage earners. I know we can't do much about the Europeans that are here given their freedom to work all over the EU but we CAN do something about African and South American imports.
We are now going to enter a period of transition - only friendlies for us till the World Cup starts so lets have some experimentation and a complete sea change in our thinking in this country where football is concerned. The Premiership is on the verge of ruining English football - let's not let it happen

 

[Lady Whistledown]

But it is also stopping English players getting big game experience. How many first team games would Theo Walcott have played for Arsenal by now if it wasn't for the amount of johnny foerigeners in the squad ?

There's two sides to this argument and that's one of them.

On the one hand, Walcott would have played more games had there been fewer foreign players.

On the other, he may not have reached the same standard, through lack of competition (ie only coming up against mediocre English players each week). You could argue that the standard of the Premier League as a whole would be weaker without so many foreign players.

The only ones who lose out are the England team, reduced to picking fringe players from average teams.

 

[pasty]

You could argue that the standard of the Premier League as a whole would be weaker without so many foreign players.

The only ones who lose out are the England team, reduced to picking fringe players from average teams.

Agreed, but I for one would rather have a good England team than the "best league in Europe", but then I don't have shares in Sky Sports.

 

[Curious Orange]

Don't you just love all the angst and blame and if-only rhetoric that goes on when England fail to qualify for something. On the plus side at least McClaren will get sacked, and Ferguson won't be able to blame England (or Wales, Scotland, Ireland, or Northern Ireland) for his players being "tired" at the start of next season.

 

[Nemesis]

why do all the England players HAVE to come from the Premiership ? Why can't the England manager take a look at players who are performing well in the Championship and possibly Leagues 1 + 2 and invite them for training camps ?

It's because the premiershite is purely and simply a money making machine for the clubs, the fa and murdoch's scummy empire and they need the premiershite prima donnas in the spotlight all the time. They do not care about the football-their only interest is money. (deliberate use of lower case because none of them deserve proper English tonight).

 

[y2dave]

Too many foreigners? No, we have enough talent it's just the england squad tonight and most of the english premiership players are absolute tarts with despicable personal traits. While Mclaren is a clown i pity the personalitys he had to work with.

Give me the albion and the likes of Mayo and Hart anyday, Englands glory boys got what they deserved.

 

[Curious Orange]

... actually, I'm going to take that one step further, there's been talk of a winter break in the League, that's bollocks, what is required is less UEFA Cup and Also-rans League fixtures.

 

[The Large One]

The die was cast the minute the FA abandoned the Football League to set up a lucrative, cash-grabbing scheme to think that pumping more money into the elite of football would benefit the national team.

The point is, and this was talked about at the time, that there was always going to be a conflict of interest between club and country. This has been exacerbated by the fact that all money was used, rather than investing in talent for the future, in spending on 'cheap, foreign imports' to hasten glory, trophies and therefore further income for the clubs. All the clubs have merely done is look after their own interests, leaving the FA - who believed they and the clubs would all pull in the same direction for the sake of the national team - looking the incompetent fools everyone knew they were.

We didn't learn after 1974, we didn't learn after 1978, we didn't learn after 1984 - and I see nothing to make me believe we going to learn from this now.

What needs to happen, if the national team is to succeed, is for the England set-up to be largely autonomous - if not independent - of the clowns who run the FA. Better still, have a mass clear-out of the deadwood at Soho Square, and start again. It might mean things will get worse before they get better, but the current, self-arrogant situation is not sustainable.

 

[blue'n'white]

Too many foreigners? No, we have enough talent it's just the england squad tonight and most of the english premiership players are absolute tarts with despicable personal traits. While Mclaren is a clown i pity the personalitys he had to work with.

Give me the albion and the likes of Mayo and Hart anyday, Englands glory boys got what they deserved.

Too damn right - give me 10 Gary harts any time rather than a bunch of overpaid tarts flouncing around like they were tonight
It's shown with Sven that he has achieved a hell of a lot more now he has his own budget to buy players than he did with England Even though he's not exactly helped the cause by buying all foreigners !! He was/is a decent manager but, as Stephen King said in "Christine" - "You can't polish a turd"