England to win the World Cup in 2022?

[Herr Tubthumper]

I'm beyond caring about this now to be quite honest. If you want change then do something about it. Endless sticking plasters every time the team fail, or are about to fail, are getting England nowhere.

 

[Stat Brother]

Sorry, I don't buy this. There seem to be two strands of thought here: a) good young England players aren't recognised and b) young English players don't get enough league games. A) is clearly not true: AOC got U-21 caps while he was still at Southampton, so he was certainly on the radar.

Yes, it's true that he doesn't play regularly for Arsenal but my point is that he would if he were playing in the Prem for Southampton. My point is that players frequently are offered a choice of regular first team football for a lesser team or sitting on a bench for a top team. 90% of them take the latter but they'd increase their chances of playing for England if they took the former.

From that you're assuming Southampton didn't want to sell.
The Albion wouldn't have turned down £12-15m, on Monday, for anybody.
Why should AOC turn down a 10 fold pay rise.

I'm sure he had other offers, and I'm sure he was sold on 'regular football, inc Champs league within a young British squad'.

But with the signing of Ozil, he's going to see those chances diminish but so are his opportunities to go elsewhere.

 

[Gwylan]

From that you're assuming Southampton didn't want to sell.
The Albion wouldn't have turned down £12-15m, on Monday, for anybody.
Why should AOC turn down a 10 fold pay rise.

That's the point though, he won't. very few players do (Le Tiss is the only player I can think of off the top of my head who spurned a big money move, although to a certain extant you could say the same of Gerrard) but that's precisely what's wrong. It's not so much that the English players aren't coming through but they're sitting in the reserves of the bigger clubs- it would be better for the England team if they played regularly.

Don't know what the answer is: the CL screws everything up. Perhaps, the FA could start looking at payments to players to stay at clubs who give them first-team action. Not sure how it could be worked but we need something like this to stop the distortion.

 

[BigGully]

One problem I feel we have in England is the standard of coaching at lesser clubs. We have 92 pro clubs and I dread to think what coaching, if any, goes on at some of these. Football down the ladder is literally a survival of the fitness and little else. Before I left the UK I went to a number of smaller clubs as I was trying to the complete my 92 (Bury, Stevenage, Burton plus some others I cannot recall) and the football was utterly desperate at times. My point being is that if a player does not make it at one of the bigger clubs they are most likely lost to this chaos never to improve their trade. Contrast this to the lower leagues here in Germany and you will more often than not see teams still knock the ball around and try and play the game. A lot of the lower divisions are also made up of big club's second XIs who obviously carry the philsophy of their first XI. In the UK the only way of playing the game further down the pyramid is by lumping the ball forward. Why is this? Why don’t lesser teams still try and play football and in the process help nurture and develop talent? My point being is that if in the most likely scenario you do not make the grade at a big club then you are pretty much lost forever. In Germany players will go to a smaller club and develop their craft. In England you will just learn to smash the ball forward at Burton.....if you're tall enough to get on their books. Once we get the lower league teams (who have a lot of control over talent) playing football we might improve. It is a sad incitement of English football that when a team like Brighton or Swansea dare to knock the ball around they stand out like sore thumbs and get highlighted for doing so.

I think you have made some good points, especially about your Germany experience.

I have some experience of the German system and many of your points are valid, but perhaps for me for slightly different reasons.

Germany have a completely different outlook to how football should be played than we do here, I do not know how this cultural shift happened but they demand a technical thoughtful approach above anything else.

I am not convinced this has been 'taught' through some historic coaching ethos, it seems to be in their DNA just as we seem to enjoy the 'blood and guts' approach to the game.

German coaches have a genuine belief of the technical side of the game, offering an advantage when they progress through their qualifications.

Sometimes I feel that many British coaches try to accept a more technical approach whilst trying to subdue their instinctive 'get it forward' beliefs, it's doomed to failure.

Your comments regarding German lower leagues is an interesting point and I think impacts on why they continue to play a passing, technical game at that level, whereas in England we dont, even if we wanted to.

Outside of the two Bundesliga leagues, you quickly drop down to a regional semi professional league and then again to full amateur leagues, whereas in England you might argue we have up to 6 professional leagues and many semi professional leagues.

In England each game in those top 6 leagues have a manager and a squad of players reliant on winning games for their own livelihood, it will not tolerate a developmental approach, it is purely driven by results, perhaps in Germany's more amateur environment in the lower leagues it lends itself to a more principled approach to its style of play, orchestrated by a well qualified German manager, without the overwhelming pressure of the result.

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble, but in Germany whether you look from the bottom up or the top down, each offers an environment which might develop technical, skillful and thoughtful players, similarly in England we end up with Scott Parker.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

That's the point though, he won't. very few players do (Le Tiss is the only player I can think of off the top of my head who spurned a big money move, although to a certain extant you could say the same of Gerrard) but that's precisely what's wrong. It's not so much that the English players aren't coming through but they're sitting in the reserves of the bigger clubs- it would be better for the England team if they played regularly.

Don't know what the answer is: the CL screws everything up. Perhaps, the FA could start looking at payments to players to stay at clubs who give them first-team action. Not sure how it could be worked but we need something like this to stop the distortion.

But to play regular football English players will have to drop down a few notches to a mid to lower Prem team at best. And most of these clubs are also littered with foreigners. And by dropping down they will lose out on European experience, have inferior coaching and play in a team with lesser gifted players. This is hardly a good grounding if you have designs on doing well for England. And what if you end up at Stoke, West Ham or Sunderland? Will your football education continue upwards or just stagnate with your sole ability being to smash the ball 100 yards?

 

[Stat Brother]

Don't know what the answer is: the CL screws everything up. Perhaps, the FA could start looking at payments to players to stay at clubs who give them first-team action. Not sure how it could be worked but we need something like this to stop the distortion.

Or mandatory central contracts to The FA, starting with the best of the current under 16's.

The FA then places the player with the club/manager best suited for their position and skill set.

In 10 years time a percentage of those players should have been steered into the England team, with no outside forces halting their progress.
(clearly it would never work, but hey at least it's run up the flag pole)

 

[Brovion]

But to play regular football English players will have to drop down a few notches to a mid to lower Prem team at best. And most of these clubs are also littered with foreigners. And by dropping down they will lose out on European experience, have inferior coaching and play in a team with lesser gifted players. This is hardly a good grounding if you have designs on doing well for England. And what if you end up at Stoke, West Ham or Sunderland? Will your football education continue upwards or just stagnate with your sole ability being to smash the ball 100 yards?

You make some good points but it's all slightly more nuanced than you're making out. Take Scott Parker. I saw him play for Charlton and he was brilliant. Then he went to Chelsea to learn from all the talented foreigners and play European football - and sunk almost without trace. I then saw him play several times for Newcastle. When he first joined them he was a shadow of the player he was at Charlton, and it took a while before he came out of his shell. Now one swallow doesn't make a summer (and Ricky Lambert coming up from Rochdale doesn't conclusively trump your argument about players forever being damned if they end up playing for a lower-league side) but Parker moving from a mediocre Premier League side to a good one didn't help his career, whereas moving back to a mediocre side definitely did.